


and i'm weeping warm honey and milk (that you stay surrounding me)

by FangirlFlailings



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: But don't worry about it, Discussion of past sexual violence, M/M, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, content warning for that is in the chapter note, professional cuddler, side Ziam, there's some smut between nick and harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-05-14 21:56:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 59,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19281973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangirlFlailings/pseuds/FangirlFlailings
Summary: Louis is a first-year medical student, still a little tender as he recovers from a personal trauma. Harry works, amongst other things, as a professional cuddler, though he comes with baggage of his own. They don’t mean it to, but the intimacy that blooms between them quietly changes them both.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> I have been working on this story for a long time, in fits and starts and through all kinds of existential angst. I usually try to post when the whole draft is complete, but for this one I need you. I'm more than halfway done, but the process would go a lot faster if I wasn't writing into a void, but for you, living breathing readers, who might find some pleasure in this sometimes-lonely thing I do in the dead of night. The theme of the day here is intimacy anyway. So here we go.
> 
> A couple of things to note real quick--  
> 1\. Title is from Missy Higgins's song "Warm Whispers."  
> 2\. I started writing this in 2017 and through 2018 (shudder) so the story itself takes place in the first half of 2018. There's some mention of midterm elections (I am American), so that's what that refers to.  
> 3\. They meet through a job, but none of the relationship stuff happens until after that arrangement is terminated, in case anyone's worried about the ethics of that. (I was.)  
> 4\. The dual POVs mean that they basically each have their own long arcs, which makes it feel like they spend a lot of time apart. But I chalk that up to Slow Burn and Character Development, and I think the payoff is ultimately worth it, so hopefully you can stick with it!
> 
> I dedicate this steaming pile of melancholic tenderness to A, whose spirit is indelibly present throughout this prose. Her warmth, care, intuition, and tremendous sense of humor have nourished and sustained me through some dark-as-shit moments. She believed in me, and in this story, and that's why we're both here now.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.

_can you heal me, baby?_  
 _i’ve been wasted in the arms of everyone_  
_i wasn’t looking for you  
but i think maybe i was, and didn’t know_

_this is love like wildness, coursing through you like a drug  
this is hurt like kindness, breaking you with gentle hands _

_i_   
_call out your name_   
_it feels like a song_   
_i know so well  
it whispers and roars like an orchestra_

_you_   
_call out my name_   
_like no one before_   
_it sounds like i  
am called to a home that i never had_

 

**_“heal me,” snow patrol_ **

  
  
  
  


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He doesn't realize he's doing it again until he hears his name, repeatedly, like an alarm ringing from another room, stirring him from a brief, hazy sleep he doesn't remember falling into. He never remembers the falling, but suddenly it's like the eyes in his mind snap open, and it takes him a moment to catch up again. _I am sitting on a comfortable couch_ , and _that’s the sound of rain on the window_ , and _my name is Louis Tomlinson_.

The woman’s face— warm, brown, eyes alight with empathy— comes back into view. _Caroline. Her name is Dr. Caroline Watson_.

“Louis,” she says again, his name soft on her lips. “Are you with me?”

He squirms a little with embarrassment. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. What's the last thing you remember me saying?”

Louis considers. His eyeline floats back to the window, the rain. It's January in Evanston, so this rain is not innocuous. It's half-frozen with ice, threatening to become snow by evening, flooding the uneven dips in the sidewalks around campus, and likely to soak through his socks on his way back to the bus stop. He has been living in this city for four and a half years now, but winters in the north Chicago suburbs still, always, take him by surprise. Every year is somehow colder, more bitter and visceral, than his memory can do justice.

The wooden frame of the office window rattles with wind. There must be a strong gale blowing; he’ll need to wear his earmuffs. He remembers his last thought before Caroline called him back. He had been watching the raindrops splatter, thin rivulets streaming down the length of the glass, and some of them collided, becoming a single stream that occasionally collected other drops along its random, twisting path. The image put him in mind of soulmates, of two’s becoming ones, of dissolving boundaries and inexplicable transformations— and how strange an idea this really was, whether the subject was raindrops or people. Louis’s shoulders curl inward at the thought, an icy shiver running down his spine even in the safe warmth of his oversized Northwestern sweatshirt. Boundaries— bodily integrity— do matter.

“Is the window distracting you?” Caroline’s voice asks. “I can close the blinds if that would help.”

“No, it’s fine.” He gently tears his gaze from the window and refocuses on Caroline, on the intricate texture of her curly hair. “I don’t remember the last thing you said.”

“I was asking you about your family. How your mom was doing with the new babies.”

“Oh.” Louis itches his nose with the cuff of his sweater paw. “She’s doing okay. Not sleeping enough, but she’s got my stepdad and all my sisters around to help.”

“Are they adjusting well, do you think?”

“Lottie and Fizz are used to having babies around. Daisy loves playing house, but Pheebs thinks they cry too loud.”

“Remind me, how old are all your siblings?”

“Lottie is eighteen, Fizzy is turning sixteen in March, and the twins are nine. Well, the older twins, now. The baby twins are six months. No, seven.”

“That's a fun age,” Caroline says with a grin. “You mentioned before that you and your family are close. They live in Indiana, right?”

Louis bites down, hard, on his lower lip. “Yeah.”

“Do you see them often?”

“Holidays.”

“Has that been hard for you? The distance?” Caroline presses. “I know you've been here awhile, but you're still pretty young, and with this last year—”

“It's fine. I'm used to it.”

Caroline stills at the slight edge in his words, then scribbles something on her notepad. Louis shreds at an awkward thumbnail, watching her progress. He always wonders what kinds of records she keeps, whether she writes more facts or general impressions, who else in this practice gets to see them. He’s never even seen her handwriting before. It’s probably a fast, loose cursive, from the speed of her sure hand. He can’t imagine what he, and his life, must look like in blue-inked cursive on clinical yellow notepads. His own handwriting is small, bunched-up— not sloppy, but cramped, trying to condense everything into the least number of pages.

“What are you thinking about now?” Caroline asks, as she lifts pen from paper, blinking up at him with practiced, neutral curiosity.

“Nothing in particular.”

“No?”

Louis shrugs. A little anguished. Helpless.

Caroline sighs, glances at the watch on her wrist. The band is slender black leather, its face stark and modern. Louis’s own watch features Iron Man preparing to punch the eleven o’clock notch, a gift from Zayn two Christmases ago. It surprises him to realize there are only five minutes left in the session.

Time always passes oddly in sessions with Caroline, sixty minutes like lumpy batter, thick and slow in some stretches but thin, fleeting, in others. He suspects such is always the case in the offices of therapists, but it isn't helped by his tendency towards dissociation. He hadn't known that was what it was called before his December trip to the emergency room, when he had undergone an intensive psychological exam, but the doctor that night, Wilson or Winston or something, had explained that, among a constellation of other maladies, his mind checked out of a room when it became too overwhelmed with sensory detail. Apparently, even basic questions about his family qualify, in his brain, as overwhelming.

He is freest, and most alive, when he can just talk about anatomy textbooks— about science, medicine, clinic, research agendas— work through the thoughts that matter most to him as an M1 at Feinberg Medical School. Beyond that, his throat closes up. Attention wanders.

Seeming to sense this, as well as a need to tread carefully, Caroline pauses for a moment, a swollen and meaningful silence against the backdrop of the quickening rain. She meets Louis’s eye with such quiet intensity that it has an anchoring effect, almost. Roots him there, with her, even as he squirms.

“Louis, this is the end of our third session now, and we spent at least half of it talking about the endocrine system.” She says this with half a wry smile, but her eyes are serious. “All I really know about you so far is what was on your initial intakes, your classes and projects, a bit about your family, and the biographies of your roommates. I think I know more about Zayn and Niall’s personal histories than I do about yours. Why do you think that is?”

Louis feels his cheeks go pink, but holds his ground. Shrugs again, half-heartedly. “There’s not much else to say, I guess.”

“There is. I know there is. But I can’t help you unless you give me something to work with.”

Her tone is firm, but so achingly kind that he curls even deeper into himself, backed as far into the couch as he can go, ankles crossed and arms tight over his chest.

“You can trust me,” says Caroline. “This is a safe space.”

“I know…”

And he does. He _does_. He has no personal objection to Caroline— feels bad, in fact, that he can’t make any better use of her time, because she’s clearly very good at her job, calm and poised, attempting valiantly to help him— but whenever she asks him a question, something inside of him clenches, violently. Like a jolted car, the cut of the seatbelt grinding into his sternum; like some kind of existential stage fright. Like he is both so deep inside, and simultaneously so far outside of himself, that he is rendered speechless.

He wasn't always like this. He _isn't_ always like this. It's only when she presses, acts as a thumb to his many bruises. If left alone, he does just fine. Got A’s on his exams last quarter and everything, despite himself.

He sighs, and somehow his own breath tastes like defeat.

Caroline closes her notepad, sets it aside and leans in a little, giving Louis a whiff of sandalwood and gardenias. She smiles gently, tucking her errant curls behind her ear.

“I think you struggle deeply with social intimacy, Louis,” she says. “It seems hard for you to build rapport beyond the superficial. And— there's something I’d like to try with you, if you can keep an open mind about it.”

Trepidation fills his lungs like cold water. “What is it?”

“I have a friend in the area who works as a professional cuddler.”

Whatever he could have hoped to expect, it certainly wasn't this. Louis wrinkles his nose, sits up a bit straighter, something inside him waking up with bemused indignance. “A _what?”_

“A professional cuddler.” Caroline grins. “I know, I know, it sounds weird, but it can actually be a really great therapeutic tool.”

Louis arches a defensive eyebrow. “I just— are you suggesting I wasn't hugged enough as a child or something?”

“I'm suggesting,” Caroline says with a light chuckle, “that this kind of tactile contact might help you open up more in here, and help you confront some of these issues around trust that I think are hurting your mental and emotional health. I can put you in touch with my friend— I’ve referred several of my clients to him in the past, to universal success— and you can talk to him about it. Ask him any questions you may have. He knows the cuddlers working in this area and can help you find a good one.”

_“Cuddlers,”_ Louis repeats in disbelief. “Isn't that kind of thing dangerous for all involved?”

“You kids have one-night-stands with strangers all the time!” Caroline laughs. “The risk of STDs alone, I mean— this is actually probably _safer_ for all involved. There are rules, and you sign a contract, and you have the right to stop at any time if you feel uncomfortable.”

“How much do these sessions even go for? I'm a student, and even dealing with copays for my medication…”

“You can talk to Nick about that, he's worked with my students before,” says Caroline. “I understand cost might be an issue, among other things, but I wouldn't recommend this if I didn't strongly believe in its therapeutic value. Let me give you his card. Just give him a call.”

She gets up from her chair, roots around in her desk until she turns up a small white card, which she hands Louis. In clean black font is the name Nick Grimshaw, a link to a website for Cuddlist.com, and a phone number with a Chicago area code. Louis stares at it for a moment before stuffing it into his pocket.

“Okay,” he says quickly. Placatingly. “I'll think about it.”

“That's all I ask.” Caroline smiles. “Alright. See you Tuesday, then?”

“Yeah, see you Tuesday.”

He takes a moment to put his winter coat back on over his sweatshirt, pull on his blue earmuffs. He grabs his backpack, swinging it over one shoulder, and lets Caroline walk him to her open door. She waves cheerfully as he sets off towards the stairs, back to the bitter cold and gray, unhappy slush. The bus will arrive, scarcely warmer than the weather and belching smoke, in about eight minutes; Louis will ride it for four stops before getting off near the Northwestern science building and walking two long, wide suburban blocks to his apartment on Noyes Street.

In a more just, closer-to-ideal world, Louis would make use of his student insurance and visit the university’s own mental health center, see a therapist on campus where he wouldn't have to deal with public transportation. In an even more ideal world, Louis wouldn't have to carve out a section of his Fridays and Tuesdays to see Caroline, or anyone at all, and he could have taken another bus to downtown Chicago, to the Feinberg lab where he could have invested his present Friday afternoon into his project on diabetes and the intestinal microbiome. Seeing a counselor (in this case, on a new, private insurance his mother had insisted on) had never been his choice; it had been the condition upon which his family reluctantly allowed him to return to school. The two hours Caroline occupies in his week are far more arduous than anything medical school has thrown at him thus far.

At least the rain has paused for now. Louis doesn't know when that happened, whether it's a stable peace or just a handily timed reprieve before it storms back to life in an hour. He stuffs his gloved hands into his North Face, his exhaled breath a puff of white smoke. He half-considers an Uber, at this point, to the dry, hallowed halls of the medical school, or the silent stacks of University Library— but, ultimately, he stays where he is. Waiting on the bus to take him to his little Evanston version of home.

 

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When Louis unlocks the apartment door twenty minutes later, he is greeted with the strong smell of cooking meat and vegetables, and the sound of Imagine Dragons blasting from the living room. Lesser mortals might have been taken aback by the solid wall of sensation constituting the air in apartment 3A— but lesser mortals never had Niall Horan as a roommate.

Niall is the sort of person who, for better and for worse, insists upon imposing his vivacious personality onto any space he enters. Louis, who has lived with him since they suffered the indignities of Bob-McCulloch Hall together in freshman year, is entirely unsurprised to find Niall singing along with “Radioactive” into a wooden spoon, rockstar style, while two pans of food roar towards completion on the blazing stove. Neither is Louis surprised to spot Zayn, a friend from down the hall in Bob, nestled under a mound of blankets on their beaten-up fourth-hand couch— the eye of the maelstrom, inexplicably asleep. When Niall finally registers Louis’s presence, he beams, turns the music down low enough to speak and be heard, and abandons his pans to pull Louis into a fierce, sweaty, salt-and-peppery hug.

“Heya, Lou!” Niall chirps. “I'm making dinner!”

“At five thirty?” Louis asks, grinning, as he shrugs off his backpack and coat, tossing them over one of their mismatched dining chairs.

“I was hungry!” Niall insists. “But don't worry, Nathan will get a pledge to swipe us into late-night tonight. Willard dining hall is doing curly fries!”

Louis only chuckles. He rarely pays for dinner anymore, with Niall’s endless web of acquaintances donating swipes from their notoriously shitty meal plans while they still live in the dorms. Niall enthusiastically rushed fraternities in freshman year, and got into one he stuck with through sophomore year. When dues and fees became too expensive, however, he formally dropped out but continued to go to the events and parties, welcomed as though he never left and informally adopted by almost every frat on campus. He waggles his eyebrows now at the thought of fries and pizza, then turns the music back up and returns to his pans, running a spoon through each and smiling lovingly at his handiwork.

Louis, for his part, grabs a packet of paper from his bag on the nervous system and gives Zayn’s shoulder a shake so he’ll share the couch. Zayn obliges sleepily, shifting so that he lays his head on Louis’s lap like a sharp-cheekboned, ridiculously well-eyelash-ed kitten. Louis tentatively pets his hair— its style always changing, but currently its natural black, long and lush and a tousled mess— until Zayn blinks awake, his slow crooked smile the stuff of angels.

“Hi,” he says. “What's that smell?”

“Niall’s cooking.”

“Fajitas and stir-fry veggies, baby!” Niall hollers over the music with a cackle.

“Oh no you don't.” As though struck by superhero lightning, Zayn’s eyes widen and he scrambles to his feet, running into the kitchen. “I remember that poor chicken whose honorable life you desecrated in the oven last quarter, there is _no way_ —”

Niall groans loudly as Zayn commandeers his pans, tasting a sliver of meat and whooping Niall in the ass with one of the dish towels. “What the _fuck_ , Nialler, why didn't you _ask me_ before you started making this mess?” he demands, while Niall mewls indignantly.

Despite his wildly scruffy hair and the scowl on his face while wrenching the fridge open to dig out garlic, jalapeño and ginger, Zayn cuts an endearingly lovely, graceful figure, dicing everything up and reaching for liberal spoonfuls of salt and red chili flakes, turning the music all the way down and giving Niall an almost vengeful lecture on the importance of seasoning. Louis snuggles up in the blankets Zayn left behind, still warm with his body heat, and chuckles as Niall protests at the proportions of aromatics to meat. The ebb and flow of their banter is better than the music, or the neuroscience packet in his hand. Cozy, after his damp, frigid bus ride.

In truth, he has been consciously trying to savor their shared student life this year, because it's the last time all three of them will get to live together like this. Niall and Zayn are seniors, set to graduate in June; they hope to find jobs in Chicago, but the future remains uncertain for them both. Niall, a double major in history and political science, has been eyeing Washington D.C., while Zayn, a double major in Economics and French, has been considering New York City. Only Louis is sure to stay in Chicago for the next three years. He finished his undergraduate coursework last year, taking summer classes to ensure he finished in three years, and started medical school in September, which he remains on track to complete in time.

He had considered living in Chicago closer to the Feinberg campus, but ultimately ended up staying in Evanston with Niall and Zayn, taking the intercampus shuttle every morning to class. And despite the commute, he can't bring himself to regret it, wolfing down the now properly spiced meat and vegetables while Zayn writes the recipe on a post-it to aid in Niall’s future culinary adventures.

As the three of them eat at the table, Niall flushed sweaty and pink and periodically sipping a glass of milk, Louis finds himself mulling over what Caroline said this afternoon, about how he struggles with intimacy. He, Niall, and Zayn are close— Louis lets them hug him, snuggle as Zayn did, kiss his cheeks like Niall does when he's drunk— and yet, despite the jovial conversation and easy chemistry between them, they are not without their fault lines, unspoken but not entirely absent. Like broken plates, carefully glued into a wholeness that still isn't quite as it was. Stable, usable, yet also undeniably traumatized.

Zayn was the one who called the ambulance in December, while Niall had to call his mother in Indiana.

They all had a hasty debrief before going their separate ways for winter break, and both Niall and Zayn asked Louis, voices heavy with meaning, if he was doing better when they reconvened in Evanston last week. Louis truthfully said yes, and gave the usual litany of excuses— stress, finals, homesickness. Lapses in judgment. But they haven't really _talked_ about everything yet. There is still so much Louis hasn't told them about December, or that night last May, or the time in between. His muscles groan against the weight of it, all of it, and the invisible distances the very nature of his secrets have created.

He wants to tell them. He does. But there never seems to be a right time, a right way, a right circumstance where his throat doesn't feel like an unmarked grave.

So he takes a breath, waits until Zayn finishes his story about chili peppers, and then tells them, “Hey. I have to ask you guys about something.”

“Sure, what's up?” Niall asks, draining the last of his milk.

“My, um. My therapist wants me to do this thing, and it sounds kind of crazy, and I don't know if I should.”

“What is it?” Zayn’s interest is piqued.

Louis’s face reddens slightly. “She knows someone who's this— this professional cuddler.”

He half-anticipates laughter— Niall, cackling like he did over his fajitas, or Zayn, making a face and chortling— but to their credit, Zayn and Niall both look merely quizzical.

“What does a professional cuddler do, exactly?” Zayn asks.

“I think I read an article about this, hang on.” Niall pulls out his phone, types something quickly and scrolls through the results. “Yeah, it was in the _Times_ a few months ago, look.”

He hands the phone to Zayn, and he and Louis scrape their chairs across the wood to crowd in on either side of Zayn, squinting at the text together. The article describes the experience of a young woman in New York who started working as a cuddler the previous year. A rush of gratefulness towards Niall floods Louis’s insides; his demeanor, and this article, have a calming, legitimating effect. Like he isn't some special kind of crazy or embarrassingly dysfunctional.

“Damn, that's some good money, she says she makes eighty bucks an hour,” Zayn says with a low whistle. “If I don't find a job in the spring right away, I might need to get in on this myself.”

“Right?” Niall says with wonder. “That's not a bad deal for some fully-clothed cuddle naps.”

“Caroline says it might help me with my ‘intimacy issues,’” Louis says, with the obligatory finger quotes. “She gave me a card for this guy named Nick, who I'm supposed to call.”

“You have the card?” Niall asks. “Get your laptop, too.”

Louis fetches both, and Niall types in the Cuddlist link. The website pops up, featuring a picture— presumably of Nick, broad smile and tall black quiff— a short bio, and some ratings and comments.

“He doesn't look like a pervert,” Zayn says fairly. “And his reviews are pretty good too.”

“Those aren't hard to fake,” Louis points out.

“He's twenty-five, he's a registered nurse at Lurie Children’s Hospital, he's been doing this for a couple of years, and he says he likes getting to know people,” Niall surmises. “Sounds harmless enough. And if Caroline is vouching for him, you probably won't end up murdered.”

“So— you think I should call?” Louis’s voice sounds worried, vulnerable, even to his own ears.

“Can't hurt to see whatever this is,” Zayn says. “Caroline wouldn't bullshit you.”

“Eighty bucks a pop is kind of steep though,” says Niall, wincing.

“Caroline said I could talk to Nick about that.”

“It seems like an informal kind of economy, I'm sure you could negotiate the price down,” Zayn says.

“Caroline said she's recommended people before, and it's worked out for them. Allegedly.”

“Then— do it, bro,” Niall says, twisting around in his chair to envelope Louis in a tight hug. “Allegedly or not, whatever helps you get better, you have to try it.”  
  
Zayn turns it into a group hug, the weight of his hand reassuring on Louis’s back. He can feel this rift, the distance he's had to keep this last year, swell up inside of him, somehow both deepening and healing with the little squeeze of Niall’s fingers on the back of his neck. Louis is lucky, he knows. Luckier than he knows what to do with. Some of that scratchy blockage in his throat and chest dissolves a little bit, though his ears burn pink as he stares at the card on the table with Nick’s phone number.  
  
“Call him,” Niall instructs, following Louis’s gaze when he and Zayn let go. “Z and I will take the liberty of stalking him on Facebook for you.”  
  
Figuring he’ll lose his nerve if he lets himself put this off, Louis decides to ride the wave of Niall and Zayn’s interest. Polishing off his share of the fajitas, he takes the phone into the bedroom he shares with Zayn, dials the number and holds his breath while it rings.

 

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“Listen, Liam, I'm not trying to knock your perfectly valid, legitimate sexuality or personal preferences or anything,” Harry explains as he quickly dries a glass with a dark blue washcloth. “I just think you're— you know, completely unadventurous, and self-destructively limited in the scope of your romantic horizons.”

“Well,” Liam responds dryly over a sip of his beer, “so long as you're not knocking my sexual preferences.”

“But how can you even have preferences if you've never tried something?” Harry asks, dramatically brandishing the now clean glass over his head. “This edges on serious existential, philosophical inquiry here, Lima Bean. How do you know what you aren’t until you have explored who you could _be?”_

“I've never been attracted to men,” Liam says with a shrug. “I have, on the other hand, been attracted to women. Several women, actually. And it's been an overall satisfactory experience.”

“Yeah, Soap dumping your ass after four years, kicking you out of your apartment and into my own loving arms, and stealing your damn dog while she’s at it, is definitely a satisfactory experience.”

“You know her name is Sophia! And we worked out shared custody of Loki!” Liam protests, blushing.

“Well, she cleaned out your clock pretty good, so she's always going to be Soap to me,” Harry says, grinning.

“Being a jerk isn't gender specific,” Liam sniffs. “What about Xander? Cheating on you with that pole dancer in the back of that TGI Friday’s?”

“I followed Xander up with Kendall, a true palette cleanser who was amazing in bed and then never wanted to see me again, sparing me an awkward brunch where we pretend we want to stay friends. So I’d say I'm still the real winner here.”

Liam shoots Harry an unimpressed look. “Human beings are not palette cleansers, Styles. You really do talk some shit, and it’s giving me a real headache, so shut up and get me a shot of tequila.”

Harry laughs, loud and high and choky-sweet. “Coming right up.”

It's Saturday night, and the weather marginally warmed up after yesterday’s frozen rain, which means the bar in downtown Chicago where Harry works, One Direction, is clogged full of people laughing and drinking and playing darts. Liam, by virtue of being Harry’s roommate and best friend since middle school, drinks for free here every weekend, despite his frequent complaints about Harry’s slow service, peppered as it is with long-winded rambling and terrible jokes. But Liam, a master’s student in social studies education, also has to spend his Saturdays catching up on several days worth of schoolwork and grading, so Harry tends to feel that he deserves the free alcohol.

“I don't actually think of human beings as palette cleansers,” Harry clarifies, with a nod to a patron down the bar gesturing for more beer. “What I meant was, she was a nice change of pace. You know? Women are softer. And they smell better.”

“So why sleep with men?” Liam asks.

“Because men play rougher.” Harry waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “It's just different. In a good way. You'd understand if you tried it. Which you should. You could pick up any guy in this bar tonight and have a fabulous time.”

Harry delivers the beer to his other patron, but still hears Liam’s weary sigh across the counter. “I know you're trying to help and all, with the breakup. But I'm not looking for Prince Charming. Or even Princess Charming.”

“Neither am I,” Harry snorts. “It's supposed to be fun. Commitment isn't fun.”

“You know, you have this whole, like, bartender-slash-rockstar-slash-douchebag vibe you're trying to cultivate, but you keep forgetting I _know_ you, Hazza,” Liam points out, sipping his beer. “You and I both cuddle people professionally. You’re a photographer. You cry when Adele comes on the radio. You told me when we were fifteen that you believe in soulmates. You don't have to try so hard, bro.”

“I would argue _you're_ the one who's trying too hard,” Harry counters. He undoes the pink camouflage-printed bandana which had been restraining his overgrown curls, and re-ties it at the nape of his neck. “I'm twenty-three years old, enjoying my youth and independence, as is my prerogative. I have my whole life to settle down. I don't know why you're in such a hurry.”

A tall, red-haired woman walks past the bar in glittery tottering heels, almost as though she was heaven-sent to prove his point. He winks at her, and she grins back, which makes Liam groan and Harry throw his head back laughing. Liam resumes drinking his beer in what he clearly thinks is a dignified silence, which gives Harry a chance to check the phone tucked into the back pocket of his skin-tight black work jeans.

“Hey, Nick just sent me a referral,” he tells Liam, leaning his elbows on the bar and opening the full text.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Harry hands Liam the phone while he takes care of a customer.

_caroline sent me a guy. nu student. think he’s got some ptsd. met him for coffee today n think ud be good for him. told him id ask u and u would text him._ _if u wanna pass send him to liam._ Under the message is a new contact— one Louis Tomlinson.

“I don’t know why Nick wouldn’t just ask me first,” Liam remarks, when Harry returns.

“Well, he says this guy is a student. Means he’ll probably want to negotiate the rate down.”

“Goddamn textbooks,” Liam grumbles. “They always fuck up my bank account at the beginning of a semester.”

“Lucky for Louis Tomlinson, I don’t have to buy textbooks yet, so I can afford to do a little pro bono,” Harry chuckles.

Both Harry and Liam got into the cuddling business— if the small, niche market can be referred to as such— during their junior year at Loyola. Nick Grimshaw, then a senior and one of Harry’s on-again, off-again hookups, told them while drunk at a house party about the money he’d been making, so Harry and Liam— strapped for cash, saddled with student loans, and contemplating graduate school— registered immediately with the Cuddlist website. Liam, ever proper and safety-conscious, insisted on brief introductory meetings with first-timers to lay down expectations and feel out the clients’ personalities; he and Harry often accompanied each other to these when possible. But in the two years they have been doing this, they have had surprisingly little trouble. The money was far better than they had hoped— Liam has kept up to date with loan payments for both undergrad and grad school, Harry is building an actual savings account to pay for law school eventually— and the timing flexibility suits their schedules. Liam is on a grueling student’s schedule, and Harry is juggling both an internship at Legal Aid and this bartending job in the evenings, so they fit client sessions in wherever they have a couple of hours to spare.

“I guess I'll text him now, then,” Harry says, tapping at his phone. “Maybe we can meet tomorrow if he sees this in time.”

“Nick said he probably has PTSD? You sure you can handle that?”

“Sure,” Harry shrugs. “I did at least five sessions last year with that severely agoraphobic guy, Matt. And there was that lady, Sydney, who was going through a divorce. She literally cried on my shoulder almost the whole hour.”

Those clients were always the most difficult, but also the most rewarding. It was like his presence could provide catharsis for people who hadn't yet found a way to make the fever break. He could hold them through the worst of it, witness their pain and their heartache and watch them realize, when they calmed down, that the earth was still turning and he was still at their side. Not everyone’s pain and loneliness manifests so nakedly, but for the ones that do, Harry leaves the session feeling like he did something worthwhile with his time. Made the world a marginally better place for someone who really needed the boost.

“If this Louis can meet you tomorrow, I can come along,” Liam says. “If he's at Northwestern, we’ll probably have to take the purple line up to Evanston.”

“I can ask him to come to the city,” Harry says, shooting off his text and pocketing the phone again. “It's a Sunday, I’m sure he can manage it.”

“True.”

“And I should probably focus on work now too,” Harry adds with a smirk. “Need anything else? Maybe another shot for the road?”

“Nah, I should go the fuck to sleep, I'm exhausted,” Liam says. “See you at home?”

“Ideally, I wouldn't, because you would pick up some fabulous gentleman on your way out of here, spend a wildly educational night at his place, and do a well-earned walk of shame back home in the morning, at which point I would make you some eggs and coax all the sordid details out of your sore, hungover person— but if that's still somehow off the table, yeah, I guess I'll just see you in the apartment.”

Liam rolls his eyes, but also pulls his wallet out of his pocket, tosses a crumpled five dollar bill at Harry’s chest, and salutes him on his way out the door. He doesn't have to— Harry always reminds him he doesn't have to— but Liam insists he feels bad ripping off One Direction all the time, no matter how tight money is, and leaves a small token every night, even the nights when Harry teases him to oblivion.

Liam has been that kind of person ever since he and Harry were paired up for a math assignment in the seventh grade, a month after Harry had moved to Lisle, Illinois. Liam had refused to copy down any of Harry’s answers because he didn't want to unfairly inflate his own grade. Harry, destined for a courtroom even then, insisted that it was allowed, even encouraged, and Harry was better at math than Liam was— but Liam operates on his own code of ethics, whether he is twelve years old, or twenty-three. He didn't copy Harry’s work; he asked Harry to explain his process. He nearly married Sophia, his high school crush, even though they were both young and she was terrible, because he is the type to follow through no matter what.

Harry is a slipperier soul, not quite as solid and earnest as his best friend. He is everything Liam pointed out he was— and, despite pretenses to the contrary, he did sleep with Kendall because he liked her, and he did ask her to brunch the next morning, only to be told she wasn't interested in him that way. It's just easier to act as though that's what he wanted from the start as well. Easier to stay light on his feet, facetiously annoy Liam, and throw himself into his various jobs— this internship he hopes will help him get into law school, this bartending gig, the freelance photography and the cuddling on the side— in the hopes that something, somewhere, in this chaos might stick. He isn't fundamentally opposed to the idea of a serious romantic relationship, but it's hardly the only thing he's thinking about. It is only in frenetic, restless motion that he finds his center of balance. Nothing sours him like the idea of a pin in his tail, when all he knows how to do is keep running.

Currently, he's studying to take the LSATs in June, apply to schools by fall. He wants to travel, if possible, before submitting his soul to corporate America. Somewhere far and fantastic, Iceland or Vietnam. He wants to make enough money that he can unclench a little, stop worrying so much about just surviving. He wants to find his place, then leave it and find another one.

But for now, all he has is a bar full of patrons, wondering why they don't have their drinks yet.

He takes a deep breath, then gets back to business.

 

.

 

Louis texts back towards the end of Harry’s shift, and they agree to meet the next morning at ten o’clock at the Starbucks on Feinberg Medical School’s campus. The bus ride to Streeterville from Harry and Liam’s apartment in Lakeview will be about twenty minutes, so Harry has every intention of going to the meeting alone and finding another nook afterwards to study for the LSATs, allowing Liam to have a well-deserved Sunday lie-in— but Liam won't hear of it. He's bleary-eyed and half-asleep when Harry returns from the bar, but sets an alarm for eight thirty anyway.

By nine thirty, however, when they are both shivering at the bus stop together waiting for their ride to arrive, Liam seems to be reconsidering his fit of chivalry.

“You _had_ to agree to meet this guy at _ten_ on a _Sunday morning,”_ Liam huffs, breath like wisps of smoke at his lips.

The day is bright but frigid, the deceptive winter sunlight undercut with a bitter wind. Harry sighs, shifting his messenger bag of study materials on his shoulder and shoving his gloved hands deeper into his coat pockets.

“You didn't have to come, you know.”

“Don't be ridiculous, we don't do client intros alone.”

“Louis is apparently going to be in the lab all day, and I have cuddle sessions in the afternoon, plus work tonight. And he wanted to talk sooner rather than later, so he wouldn't lose his nerve. That's why we chose ten. He's a medical student; it's unlikely he’s going to murder me in a campus Starbucks.”

Liam’s nose is a raw, sensitive pink, but his dark eyes are resolute. “We have to be safe.”

“I sleep with strange men, and sometimes women, on a fairly regular basis,” Harry points out with a laugh. “Do you want to accompany me on those dates too? I was trying to do you a kindness.”

“Then you would've convinced him to reschedule for next Saturday afternoon,” Liam says. “Because really, I'm the one doing _you_ a kindness. Sparing your ungrateful ass from all the creeps and perverts who want to feel you up. That Flack woman would've eaten you alive if I hadn't been there to tell you she was bad news, if you remember.”

“Louis is legitimate! Caroline Watson vouched for him. You only have yourself to blame for this state of affairs,” Harry insists. “You could've let me go myself. Or you could've listened to me last night and slept off a sexual awakening in some hot guy’s bed, happily oblivious to this bus’s shocking disregard for scheduled pickup times.”

“And yet— if you _did_ get murdered as a result of the meeting, I would be out a best friend slash rent-paying roommate,” Liam counters with a smirk. “And I hate both filling out police forms and moving. So I might as well just tag along, and wake myself up by drinking the coffee my best friend is going to buy me when we get there.”

The bus chooses now to come rumbling up the street, stopping with a shudder in front of them. Harry rolls his eyes, but doesn't argue as they board the vehicle and snatch up the last two seats in the back.

Harry prefers to be early to first-time client meetings so that he can be there to greet and reassure them upon their arrival. But, the CTA weekend schedule and the reality of Chicago traffic being what they are, the bus deposits Harry and Liam at Northwestern Memorial Hospital at five past ten, while Harry frantically texts Louis.

“Apparently he's already there, at a table in the corner.”

“Relax,” says Liam. “Look, we’re here now too.”

They cross the street and make their way into the busy coffee shop. As it's a weekend on a university campus, Starbucks is crowded with students, almost every flat surface occupied by laptops and books and cups of coffee in progress. Liam spots Louis first, pointing Harry past the register to a table for four tucked away by a back wall. A young man in a purple beanie and a gray Northwestern sweatshirt is clicking through something on his laptop, but raises a tentative hand when Harry and Liam make eye contact.

“Hi,” he says, as they approach. “I'm, um, Louis Tomlinson? Is one of you Harry Styles?”

Harry, sensing typical client discomfort, unleashes the full effect of his megawatt smile, and puts out his hand to shake. “Yes, that's me. It's nice to meet you, Louis. This is my friend Liam, he's a cuddler too. He's just here with me for safety reasons.”

Liam offers his sweetest crinkly-eyed smile, and shakes Louis’s hand too. “Nice to meet you. Do we have more company coming?”

Louis’s table appears to be set for two— another laptop covered in comic book stickers sits across from him, a notebook and an economics book sitting quite apart from an intimidating stack of thick medical textbooks.

“Oh, yeah— my friend Zayn,” Louis says quietly. “We came here to study together about an hour ago. He's in the bathroom, he’ll be back in a minute.”

“Sounds good!” Harry beams as he sets his bag down and shifts Zayn’s things over to sit across from Louis. “Liam’s just going to get our drinks— do you want anything?”

“No, thanks,” Louis murmurs, eyes tracking Harry taking a crumpled twenty dollar bill from his wallet and sending Liam away to the line. Louis’s eyes are an almost startling shade of electric blue, cool and bright in the glaring fluorescence; they hook somewhere behind Harry’s stomach when they make direct eye contact. Louis’s expression is politely cautious, but his eyes are already arresting— loaded, complicated.

“Thank you, for coming on such short notice,” he says. “I, uh. Haven't done anything like this before.”

“Most people haven't,” Harry assures him with a chuckle.

“I met Nick yesterday.” Louis fiddles with the strings of his sweatshirt with long, delicate fingers. “He said you would be my best option.”

“That’s because I negotiate discounts, which Nick and Liam usually don't.”

“Why do you?” Louis’s gaze locks in on Harry’s again, blazingly interested.

“I can afford to once in awhile, on a case by case basis. Plus, I mean—” Harry considers how best to phrase this. “I don't know, I feel like people really need the cuddles? And I want to be able to help however I can. I know you're a student, so I can offer you a half rate? Forty dollars an hour?”

Louis’s expression is still guarded, but something relaxes a little around his mouth anyway. “Yeah, that would…that would be great.”

“Perfect.” Harry beams, in a way he hopes is encouraging instead of deranged. “So, as I mentioned over text, the reason Liam and I do these intro meetings is so that we get to know each other a bit before we dive into the cuddling, and so that we can lay out some ground rules. I have a— I actually have a standard email I send when a client officially sets up a meeting, so there’s no need to take any notes,” he says, rather endeared by the image of Louis dutifully opening his notebook to a fresh page, pen already in hand. “I’ll just tell you now, then you can read through the email, and let me know if you have any questions. Sound good?”

“Sure.” Louis shrugs, setting the notebook down, but his eyes focus on Harry with such determined laser-beam focus that they’re like a spotlight, disarmingly attentive and infinitely blue. For a moment, Harry loses track of his well-practiced spiel: somehow, nothing in his head or on his tongue could measure up to the sudden intensity with which he is now being observed. A slight blush simmers just below the surface of his ivory cheeks.

He is about to valiantly launch into his mental checklist when they are interrupted by the arrival of, quite possibly, the most attractive man Harry has ever seen, up close or otherwise.

He’s young, one of Louis’s fellow students, but he seems to belong not here, not amongst mere mortals in scarves and beaten-up jackets, but on a runway in Milan, or perhaps in a famous Renaissance painting, rightfully photographed by generations of tourists. He’s tall and slender, with smooth brown skin and thick black movie-star hair, mostly slicked back but with a few carelessly handsome tendrils hanging over his eyes, which are like a doe’s, wide and deep brown and gentle. His face appears to be almost perfectly symmetrical, with high, sharp cheekbones and a perfect jawline. He brushes past Harry and sits down in the chair next to Louis, who can inexplicably treat this rupture in the universe as a perfectly normal occurrence.

“This is my friend Zayn,” Louis says. “Zayn, this is Harry.”

The man’s face splits into a smile that should be permanently accompanied by a choir of angels. “Oh, hi, nice to meet you,” he says, putting out his hand to shake.

Harry, still bemused, obliges. “Hi.”

“I didn’t want Louis to come alone to meet you the first time,” Zayn explains. “Stranger danger and all that. I hope it’s okay that I join you?”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” Harry hopes his smile is a convincing approximation of normalcy. “I actually brought backup of my own as well— here’s Liam now.”

With impeccable timing, Liam arrives with their drinks and Harry’s change— only to lay eyes on Zayn, and stop dead in his tracks.

It’s a funny thing, even as it occurs in real time: Harry registered at once, as a bisexual man and a human being with the privilege of sight, that Zayn was surreally beautiful; but for Liam, it’s as though he’s been hit by lightning. Struck dumb and electrified where he stands. Harry can _feel_ him stiffen, re-evaluate possibly his entire existence. And when Harry glances to Zayn, it’s like some of the lightning has rubbed off on him, too. Left sparks in the rich brown of his eyes, in the slight grin playing on his mouth. Liam sinks carefully, almost faintly, into his chair. Shoves Harry’s drink towards him, and leans forward smiling.

“Hi, I’m Liam Payne,” he says. Announces.

Zayn’s grin becomes wide and genuine— startlingly lovely. “I’m Zayn. Malik.”

They shake hands, but do not break eye contact.

“ _Well,”_ Harry presses, now smirking himself. “Now that we’re all introduced— Louis. We were talking about ground rules.”

“Yes.” Louis meets Harry’s eyes again, and there is a mischievous twinkle in him, too. “Rules. Please, continue.”

Harry takes a hot, bracing sip of his coffee. “So, number one rule— what we do isn’t sexual at all, in any way.”

“Right,” Louis says, still smirking as he glances sideways at Zayn, who has yet to take his eyes off Liam.

“Cuddling is strictly platonic,” Harry continues, sending a well-aimed kick under the table to Liam’s shin. “It’s about comfort, not sex, so we’ll hug, and spoon, but that’s where it stops. I also don’t do overnight sessions— which shouldn’t be an issue for you, but I figured I’d still mention it upfront.”

“Makes sense.” Louis is serious again, his expression such that Harry is sure he’s taking careful mental notes.

“Closely related— communication. Probably tied for number one rule. We absolutely must be honest with each other about our expectations and boundaries. If you or I feel unsafe, or uncomfortable in any way, we have to say so right away, as clearly and kindly as possible. For example, I too am a man, so I know that erections can— and do— happen in situations like these. So if you feel one coming on, let me know, and we can shift positions, or take a quick break.”

“Does that happen a lot, with clients?” Louis manages to keep a straight face, but his ears are turning pink.

“Yes, it’s fairly common for male clients. But as I said, if we communicate clearly, then it’s never a problem. There is no need to be embarrassed, I promise.”

Louis hums his assent, though the tips of his ears remain rosy.

“Some cuddlers do incalls at their personal residences, but I try to insist on outcalls at clients’ homes,” Harry says. “I find that people are most comfortable in their own spaces. There’s usually a fee for transport, but— where do you live, exactly?”

“Evanston,” Louis says. “Right off the Noyes stop on the purple line, literally thirty feet away from it.”

Harry chews thoughtfully on his lower lip. “Okay, from Lakeview, if I take the train from Belmont— Liam, that’s what, half an hour?”

Liam pulls out his phone to check. “That sounds about right.”

“But I’m usually here in Chicago on campus,” Louis adds. “I can come up to Lakeview, if that would be easier… I know Evanston’s a trek, and I’m not paying your full rate, so. Whatever’s easiest.”

After several long minutes under Louis’s careful gaze, it’s like a forceful seizure of light when his eyes avert downward now with humbled embarrassment. It makes Harry’s heart melt: Evanston is indeed a trek, and he strongly prefers not bringing clients to his own bed (a place where his one-night-stands are never allowed either), but he also doesn’t want to say no outright. Not when Louis’s posture shifts with awkwardness, his fists burrowing into the folds of his sweatshirt sleeves like protective little gray paws. Zayn looks plainly like he wants to hug his friend in sympathy, but refrains from doing so— like Louis is a self-contained universe, folded into himself, forcefield and all. In other words, the precise kind of client that Harry knows needs him the most.

“It depends on when— if— you want to schedule your session,” Harry says at last. “Is this something you’re interested in doing with me?”

Slowly, slowly, Louis’s gaze rises to meet Harry’s again. “Yes.”

Even this little word, uttered softly with an edge of ambivalence, warms Harry more than the coffee.

“Okay. I know you’re a student, so— is a weeknight better, or a weekend?”

“Either. Both. On weekdays, I finish classes for the day at three.”

Harry pulls up the calendar on his phone, considers. “So, how about…Thursday? Let’s say, four o’clock?”

The firmness of a scheduled appointment— a day and time to be accountable to— sends a clear ripple of nerves across Louis’s face, but he nods in earnestness. “That sounds good. Thank you.”

“No problem.” Harry beams. “The rest of the rules are basically just logistical. I always recommend taking a shower just before we get started if time allows. Wear something clean that you feel comfortable in, at minimum shorts and a t-shirt. I take cash, check, Paypal or Venmo at the start of the session. If you need to cancel, let me know at least twelve hours in advance, otherwise I charge a half session’s payment. And if you have any special considerations I need to know about— if you have any pains or weaknesses, or a particular emotional trigger, or anything like that— just shoot me a text or email. Do you have any questions right now?”

“I actually have a couple of questions, if that’s okay, Lou,” Zayn interjects. Louis gestures his approval, and something shifts in the set of Zayn’s slender shoulders— authoritative, protective. He trains his gaze directly on Harry, all business. “Do you have training for this kind of thing? How long have you been doing this, and how many clients have you seen so far?”

“All fair questions,” Harry says. “Liam and I have both been doing this for about a couple of years now, and we did get certified. There was an online course and in-person evaluation, and Nick Grimshaw was our mentor starting out. Our Cuddlist profiles have past client evaluations available, if you want to see them. And I’ve seen about…what, sixty, seventy clients total?”

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Liam agrees. “It’s similar for me as well. We thought we’d be at a disadvantage, since most cuddlers are women, but we’ve done pretty well for ourselves, especially with referrals.”

“Yeah, neither of us have honestly ever had much trouble,” Harry adds. “We’ve had people try to push boundaries with the flirting, or try to cheat the cancellation fee policy, but most of the time everyone’s very nice.”

“Do you enjoy it?” Louis asks the question quietly, but his eyes never lose their electric intensity.

“I do,” Harry says, meeting his line of sight without flinching. “It’s easy to underestimate, but touch is so important psychologically. People can be lonelier than they realize. I think what Liam and I do is a good and important thing.”

Louis is silent for a long moment, mulling this over; Harry feels him like an x-ray scanner, one final appraisal. But Harry is not a passive subject. He scans Louis too— the faint worry lines between his brows, the defensive inward curl of his shoulders, the vague hauntedness belying those careful eyes. He thinks of what Nick mentioned about PTSD, a referral from Caroline Watson. And so Harry is patient, watching Louis digest and slowly, tentatively, trust this answer. Louis takes a steadying breath, then offers a crinkly-eyed smile like a burst of unexpected sunshine.

“Okay, well, I think that answers everything for now,” he says. “Is there, um, anything else I need to know before Thursday?”

“Nope, you’re all set,” Harry says, smiling too. “I’ll send you that email with the details, and you just have to confirm your address, and that you read and understood what we’ve discussed.”

“Sure.”

“Great, then I’ll see you Thursday!”

Harry rises to his feet almost simultaneously with Louis, who puts his hand out to shake. His fingers are long and delicate— future doctor’s hands— but his grip is firm. Strong. Harry shakes Zayn’s hand as well, and suppresses his amusement when Liam easily shakes Louis’s hand, but blushes from his cheeks to the base of his neck when confronted by Zayn’s soft palm. Zayn, for his part, just grins, as Harry and Liam gather their things and say their goodbyes.

Harry waits until he and Liam are back outside in the bright winter morning, safely out of earshot, to give Liam a good whack with the full weight of his bag of LSAT books.

“You know I fully support any and all of your sexual awakenings, Lima Bean,” Harry says, as Liam squawks rather unattractively with the blows. “But could you kindly not have them when I’m _with a client?”_

“It’s not a sexual awakening!” Liam insists, albeit with a whine. “I mean. You saw him too! It was a giant rush of pure physiology!”

“If your avowedly straight penis goes hard at the sight of a man, even a man that pretty, it counts as a sexual awakening,” Harry returns, wildly torn between hilarity and irritation. “And I was there for a client, Liam! A nervous one! It was admittedly a satisfying moment for me on an existential level, but otherwise it was totally inappropriate and unprofessional.”

“I honest to God didn’t mean to mess anything up,” Liam says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry if I did. I just— did you _see_ him?”

“I did,” Harry says with a snort. “But, time and place. Like tonight, at One Direction, having an in-depth discussion about your feelings before downing three shots of tequila and sending you home with the best-looking guy in the room.”

“Please,” Liam scoffs. “I’m still not interested in men. Except maybe copying the exact genetic code of that particular man so that we can find the sequence for _perfect fucking facial symmetry,_ holy _shit.”_

“I’m pretty sure this Zayn guy was sent to you as a gift-wrapped message from God reading, ‘Liam Payne, you are not straight and Harry was right about everything, so go get yourself some good dick and change your life.’”

Liam rolls his eyes, cheeks pink with cold and— Harry assumes— embarrassment and lust. “You talk so much shit, I’m surprised you don’t choke on it, Styles.”

“There are other, better things to choke on, Payno,” Harry retorts with a cackle. Liam gives an almighty groan, his face in his hands.

“I clearly walked right into that one and have no one to blame but myself,” he sighs. “But it’s fucking freezing, so I’m going to go catch that stupid bus home. Meet you at the bar around nine?”

“Indeed I shall,” Harry says, saluting him. “Come prepared to discuss your earliest childhood experiences with birds, bees, and boys.”

Liam pulls a face, but sets off down the street to wait at the bus stop where they were so recently deposited. Harry watches him go, still chortling, before setting off to claim a table at Newberry Library for a few hours. Studying for the LSATs can often become a wearying exercise for the soul, so Harry is forever hunting for new and exciting places to work around the city. Happily, Newberry is one such location he has yet to explore.

Google Maps estimates that it’s almost a twenty-five minute walk from here; Liam would surely have balked at the distance with the weather. He hates the Midwestern cold, never got used to it despite being born and raised in the city’s suburbs. But Harry, originally a native of California, has learned the trick to surviving these bitter January days: the cold only bites if he’s standing still. So as long as he keeps moving— bag swinging against his thigh, headphones out and blasting, hands in his pockets as he picks up his stride and squints against the sun— even this famous Chicago wind can’t touch him.

He is too restless to settle on one of his playlists, so Harry lets his phone’s shuffle surprise him, as he walks out beneath and towards a sky that, funnily enough, is almost precisely the same shade as his new client’s guarded, remarkable eyes.

 

 


	2. two

It snows again on Wednesday, flurries coating the sidewalks and hardening into lethal patches of ice in the Midwestern chill. Louis manages to hide out on the medical school campus through the worst of it, and catches the university shuttle back to Evanston in the afternoon without incident. Zayn, however, manages to slip on the steep steps of University Hall on the way to class, and complains for twenty minutes to the roommate group chat about “reckless student endangerment” and “moral and economic stinginess re: salting” and “why does anyone live in this frozen fucking tundra anyway?!” He returns to the apartment that evening shivering, with damp jeans and a terribly pathetic scowl, which Louis must exercise great self-restraint not to laugh at.

“I genuinely do not know how you’ve survived three years on this campus,” he remarks with a chortle, glasses illuminated by the soft electric glow of his laptop. “Shouldn’t your Florida ass have gotten used to this shit by now?”

Zayn— currently standing in the middle of the living room in just a white t-shirt and a black pair of briefs, mourning the smears of dirt he’s discovered on his jeans— pouts with indignation.

“My Florida ass was sore through an entire three hour block of international finance, have a little sympathy.”

“I do!” Louis chuckles. “I left you a mug of hot chocolate in the microwave. And check the group chat, I’ve convinced Nialler to call in a favor and get his pledge lackeys to order us Sarpino’s. Triple toppings.”

Zayn’s scowl lightens considerably.

“Did you put cinnamon in my hot chocolate?”

“Of course I did. Now go get it, put on some pajamas, and get in this blanket.”

Zayn obliges, and they share a companionable time on the couch, the blanket mingling with their shared natural body heat, the two of them sipping hot chocolate and working through some reading— Louis, endocrinology, and Zayn, labor economics. The overlap of their feet, and occasional knocking of arms and elbows as they occasionally reposition themselves for a better reading angle, is an innocent kind of comfort, Louis can’t help but notice. Grounding, in a way. A gentle, non-intrusive physical contact that tethers them to each other, even as their minds wander through the expanses of their respective expertises. He snuggles in a little closer, carefully, self-consciously— and Zayn’s whole posture opens up like a protective wing, the tips of his fingers stroking loose circles on Louis’s forearm.

“This okay?” Zayn asks after a minute, glancing up over the top of his book.

Louis hesitates, though he isn’t sure why. “Yeah. It is.” Another beat. “Guess it’s good practice for tomorrow.”

Zayn’s expression softens. “Right. Harry’s coming— at four, right?”

Louis nods.

“You nervous?” Zayn sets his book down on his lap.

Louis’s eyes avert downwards. “I mean. Yeah.”

“I think it’ll go well,” he says decisively. “I really think Harry will be good for you. And comments for him on the website were all legit-sounding and positive, I did check.”

Zayn’s gaze is an almost tangible thing, like the sweet weight of strong sunlight. It’s enough to melt Louis a little. He’s been touched by Zayn’s enthusiastic, and serious, participation in this odd process since last week— valiantly accompanying him to his meetings with both Nick Grimshaw and Harry, questioning both on his behalf, taking the whole situation with the utmost seriousness. Niall had wanted to come along, but was slammed with course papers and obligations to the College Democrats, a campus group for which he serves as Vice President. Louis has little doubt Zayn’s kept him updated on each development— he knows the two of them talk, especially about him the last couple of months— but it’s actually easier this way, letting Zayn act as his ventriloquist, instead of digging through his feelings and explaining them to a waiting audience.

Caroline Watson had not let him off the hook so easily in their session yesterday.

“I’m really proud of you for taking the initiative and setting up this cuddling appointment so quickly, I know that can’t have been easy,” she‘d told him. “But how do you feel about actually following through on it? Anxious? Scared?”

When Louis could only offer a helpless shrug in response, Caroline sighed. “You’re harder to read than you think you are, Louis. You already know what you’re thinking and feeling, but the rest of us are always just guessing. You have to say what you mean so that other people can react appropriately for what you need.”

He looks at Zayn now, warm eyes and gentle fingers still resting on his arm. He takes a breath, and admits, “It was hard enough meeting Nick and Harry over the weekend. I’m not sure how I’m going to spend an hour alone with him all over me tomorrow. It’s just. I feel like I’m going to…to freak out, or something.”

“I can stick around the apartment while he’s here,” says Zayn. “And I think Niall will be free too. If things go south, we can intervene.”

A shudder rips through Louis’s stomach. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“Of course you can.” Zayn’s eyes widen. “Lou, I’m serious, whatever you need, we’ll do it.”

He is so achingly earnest— but belying that earnestness, always, is that rift like a tectonic fault line running jagged and bruised between them. That night in December, both culmination and rupture. This moment seems to swell, poised on the edge of the canyon of things Louis won’t, can’t, talk about yet— but the words never make it out of his chest. They only burrow deeper, curl up somewhere arcane and tenuous in his guts, elusive and festering. The moment passes, and they both let it. Louis takes another careful breath.

“If you don’t mind, it would be good to have someone around. You, or Niall. Or both.” His voice sounds small to his own ears.

“We don’t mind at all,” Zayn says immediately. “I’ll text Niall.”

He makes to leave the electric blanket and find his phone— but before Zayn gets to his feet, the lock jangles with a roughly shoved key and opens to reveal Niall himself, cheeks and nose radiantly pink from the cold.

“Pizza’s on its way, brothers, should be here in ten— hey! That looks cozy!” Niall sheds his parka and makes a beeline for the couch, climbing on top of a protesting Zayn for a share of the heat. He smells strongly of sweat and salt and coffee as he forces a place for himself between Louis and Zayn, beaming at both of them.

“What’s new here?” Niall asks, feet shivering and ice-cold against Louis’s. “It’s fucking horrible outside, meetings should be done through video chat during winter quarter.”

“We were just talking about you, actually,” says Zayn, shifting away from Niall’s excitable limbs.

“Oh?” Niall throws an arm each around Zayn and Louis. “All nice things, I hope?”

“Are you going to be around at four tomorrow? Louis would like us to be in the apartment during his appointment with Harry.”

“Oh, sure!” Niall looks inexplicably delighted. “Yeah, I’ll be here. D’you think he’ll bring that friend of his? This one Zayn’s been obsessed with?”

“I’m not obsessed!” Zayn protests hotly, as Louis turns to him, jaw dropped.

“Why don’t I know about this?!” Louis exclaims. “We’re supposed to be  _ friends, _ Zayner.”

“He didn’t think it was ‘appropriate,’” Niall explains with heavy air quotes, “to be flirting with some guy while you were doing this important therapeutic thing.”

“Because it’s not. And he’s probably straight, too,” Zayn mumbles. “It would be just my luck.”

“No straight guy reacts to a man the way Liam did yesterday,” Louis says with a grin. “And anyway, what are you talking about,  _ just my luck _ — you won the genetic lottery of a lifetime, maybe even a generation, so you don’t get to talk to us sloppy joes about luck.”

“It doesn’t mean much if I never actually meet anyone nice,” Zayn insists, blushing. “Liam seemed nice.”

“Or, more precisely, besotted,” Louis smirks.

“Either way, it doesn’t matter, because I don’t think I’m ever going to see him again,” Zayn says, still pink. “And it’s not what matters right now anyway. Harry’s coming tomorrow— how do you feel about that, Lou? Anything you need to talk about?”

Niall, perpetually an electric ball of kinetic energy, stills too, as the two of them fix Louis with twin stares of undivided attention. Somehow, they remind him of Caroline, waiting for something from him that he isn’t sure how to provide. Louis has never done well under spotlights, never liked activities in childhood that required performance. Toiling in obscurity— reading every book he could get his hands on in rapt silence— came so naturally to him. The words in his throat seem to dry up the moment they are exposed to light.

He had felt a similar way meeting Nick Grimshaw for coffee, immediately a little intimidated by Nick’s open warmth and obvious sincerity. They hardly knew each other, but Nick had jumped right in, talking about his love of nursing and asking Louis about everything from school to his family to his impressions of Caroline, who was a close friend. He found himself stumbling through answers, growing steadily more embarrassed the longer Nick nodded encouragingly, his strikingly brown eyes unwavering from Louis’s pink cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Louis had said at one point, taking a long gulp of his drink to free himself of the obligation for eye contact. “I guess I’m not very good at talking about myself.”

“That’s okay, you’re doing great, you just have to relax,” Nick laughed. “I would love to take you on as a client myself, but with pricing constraints— do you have a preference for a male or female cuddler?”

“Uh. Male would be better, probably?”

“How refreshingly enlightened of you, too many guys squirm at the idea of touching other guys,” Nick said, beaming. “In that case— I think you’ll do great with Harry, he’s a sweetheart. He’ll take good care of you.”

And indeed: Harry had been gracious. Warm. He handled Zayn’s interrogation with a light touch, and his handshake was firm without being overwhelming. It didn’t hurt, either, that he was lovely to look at— big olive-green eyes, creamy alabaster skin, a wide easy smile with a sizable dimple on his left side. Louis was not a naturally gregarious person, it took him a certain amount of time to open himself up to anyone, but Harry seemed like someone he could trust. Someone who always treated people with kindness.

Perhaps that’s why Louis is only mildly queasy about meeting him tomorrow. He feels Zayn and Niall’s concern radiating from their persons like their mingled body heat under the blanket, but he doesn’t necessarily share it. He isn’t sure what to expect, and the whole idea of cuddling that man for an hour has a rather abstract, disembodied quality to it right now, but he knows he doesn’t expect disaster— which, under the circumstances, is a minor miracle.

“I think I’m okay about tomorrow,” Louis says at last, his tone careful. “I mean…I don’t know. It’s all kind of weird, but. We’ll see how it goes?”

“Brave man, Tommo,” Niall says approvingly, clapping an arm around Louis’s shoulders. “You’ll do great. And we’ll be here to kick the stuffing out of him if he takes one step out of line.”

“What are you going to do, kill him with your unseasoned chicken?” Zayn retorts. “You still make me kill all your spiders.”

“Because I don’t want the dark stain of spider murder on my soul,” Niall says, in what he clearly believes are dignified tones.

“And I  _ do  _ want spider murder on my soul, asshole?!”

“Yeah, it’s character-building! And my chicken is delicious, all the pledges say so!”

“They’re hardly unbiased sources! They’d enjoy eating shoe polish if you told them to!”

Fortunately, the debate is interrupted up by the ring of the buzzer, indicating the arrival of pizza. Chuckling, Louis disentangles himself from his roommates and lets them resume their banter while he goes downstairs to fetch the food. In spite of himself, he re-enters the apartment buoyant— comforted. He forgets, sometimes, that moments of vulnerability do not result in apocalypse. He sets the pizza down on the kitchen counter, and Zayn and Niall clamoring next to him to grab a slice (or, in Niall’s case, three slices).

“To you and your good health, Lou!” Zayn says, toasting his drooping slice in Louis’s face.

“Hear, hear,” Niall agrees, already chewing down his first slice but holding up an uneaten one for the occasion. “Love ya, mate!”

Louis just smiles around hot cheese and onions and mushrooms, cheeks pink.

  
  


.

  
  


By three thirty the following afternoon, Louis is prepared. Showered, scrubbed clean, sprayed down with deodorant, teeth brushed, wearing a fresh pair of boxers with clean sweatpants and his purple class t-shirt. The bedroom Louis shares with Zayn sports a new Glade plug-in— lavender-scented— and he had changed the sheets that morning when he woke up at three in the morning in cold sweat and couldn’t convince his body to go back to sleep. Zayn, a heavy sleeper who never stirs for thunderstorms or early alarms, slept through the entire cleaning process— including vacuuming— so Louis made certain that every inch of space Harry is to occupy this afternoon was clean and presentable before he left for his eight AM lecture. He even made Zayn’s bed for him when he’d returned from class to find the usual mess of blankets in a heap at the head of the mattress. This room hasn’t been so tidy since, frankly, Louis and Zayn’s mothers helped them move in. That’s something to take some pride in, at least.

Louis is taking a cleaning break, sitting on one of the kitchen counter stools and scrolling through Twitter, when Zayn and Niall arrive together, loud high-speed chatter preceding them, removing their heavy coats and ooh-ing and aah-ing at the state of the apartment. Niall, who lives in the second bedroom alone in a tsunami-state of his own creation, snickers when he finds even his own laundry has been picked up, when Louis ran out of tasks to occupy his hands. Zayn just laughs, and asks when they got the Glade plug-in.

“I got it at CVS last night, when I went to get mouthwash and Crunch bars,” Louis explains, not bothering to look up from his phone. “Thought it would set the mood, or whatever. I don’t know how this kind of thing works.”

“We should do this more often,” Zayn remarks, now flopping down on the couch, which has been recently vacuumed of its usual layers of crumbs. “I forgot what my comforter looked like spread out like that.”

“I changed your sheets too. They’re Spider-Man now instead of the Avengers.”

“Nice! Thanks, Lou!”

“Harry won’t be going into  _ my _ room,” Niall points out. “Why’d you put all the clothes in my hamper? Some of those were okay to wear a couple more times!”

“Nothing that has touched that floor is okay to wear again, Horan.”

“I have a  _ system _ , Tommo,” Niall retorts.

“I was trying to do something nice for you since you’re sticking around here for me today, dickface. You’re welcome.”

“Oh, that doesn’t require any favors,” Niall says, grabbing a Gatorade from the fridge and joining Zayn on the couch. “But if you really want to do me one, I have a bio anthro midterm coming up next week that you could help me with. That fucking class doesn’t have a curve, and I can’t ruin my GPA over a fucking science distro credit.”

“I was going to help you with that anyway,” Louis says, grinning. “Seems we’ll have to call in favors another time. Maybe you can actually  _ do  _ that laundry I collected, that would be nice just existentially. To know that you’re capable of working a laundry machine.”

“I totally can, I just never want to,” Niall says. “I mean, you wash it once, and then you wear it, and you just have to wash it again. Such a waste of time.”

“Yeah, and you ate lunch a couple hours ago, but here you are, drinking that sugary blue shit again. It’s almost like some things have to be done in a constant cycle to maintain quality of life or something.”

“Booooo,” Niall says, looking around for something to throw at Louis and settling on the socks off his feet, balled up together and hitting Louis in the shoulder.

Louis, rolling his eyes, sets his phone down and deposits the socks into Niall’s hamper.

“Harry’s coming at four, right?” Zayn asks, checking his watch.

“Yeah.” Louis’s stomach backflips uneasily. “Yeah, and then we’ll just go in our room.”

“Okay, no worries. I’ve got everything I need in my bag out here, so I won’t disturb you guys.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Louis says, more to himself than the other two. “I mean. Caroline recommended Nick, and Nick recommended Harry. It’s fine.”

“Of course it’s fine!” Niall says. “You know, Lou, if you want more snuggles after Harry, I can totally hook you up for free.” To demonstrate his commitment, he gets up from the couch and drapes himself over Louis’s back, his breath hot and vaguely smelling of chips against Louis’s neck. “Snuggles are awesome. Men should snuggle more.”

Louis awkwardly manages to free one of his arms and wrap it around Niall, who takes the opportunity to snuggle in even closer. “Yeah, maybe. And uh. Let me see how it goes with Harry, and I’ll let you know.”

“‘Kay.” Niall squeezes once, then returns to the couch, where Zayn has pulled out his labor economics textbook. “Snuggle me, Zayner— Louis can’t be the only one getting cuddle action today.”

Zayn turns a page, and opens his arm to Niall, who instantly burrows into Zayn’s side. “God, you smell  _ amazing,” _ Niall moans, breathing into Zayn’s shirt.

“That’s a little too close to my armpit for comfort there, friend,” Zayn says, shifting Niall so that his head is safely on his lap. “There you go. And thank you.”

“Maybe I should actually be a professional cuddler,” Niall says, pulling down the blanket draped on the couch over his person. “I love cuddles. Everyone should cuddle all the time.”

“Seems like it’s decent money,” Louis says with a shrug. “Maybe you should.”

“Maybe after the midterm elections are over and I can finally take a canvassing break,” Niall muses.

He buries his face back into Zayn’s waist for now, and Zayn, still reading, lets his free hand stroke Niall’s skunky blonde-brown hair with a casual, understated tenderness that makes Louis smile with a certain wistfulness.

Louis is from a big family full of sisters, so cuddles were commonplace growing up; he often felt half-naked without at least two little girls smelling of peanut butter hanging around him at all times. But outside of his family, he was cautious about such close contact, even hugs, with mere acquaintances. The feeling only redoubled itself in college, where men who were strangers to each other casually bumped shoulders and noogied each other’s heads and collided playing sports. Louis tended to prefer a little protective distance from the bear-cub antics of his fellow students. It was only the previous year that Louis let even Niall and Zayn gather on the couch with him, mess with his hair, or hug on him unexpectedly. It took until four months ago for Louis to completely relax into that friendly contact.

But between themselves, Niall and Zayn never really hesitated, Niall in particular. Niall thrives on touch. He forges new intimacies as easily as he breathes. He’s fearless about it in a way that Louis can’t even conceptualize. Louis has never thought to lay on Zayn’s lap like that, but Niall looks like a peaceful kitten, practically purring as Zayn one-handedly massages his scalp.

Maybe Louis struggles because that’s how men are socialized, to eschew social touch in favor of individualized toughness. Maybe it’s because he’s always been anxious, uncertain about entering any personal space that is not deemed fair game by blood relation. Maybe it’s because he’s just bad at connecting with people in general, like Caroline seems to think. But he finds, watching Niall’s eyelids drooping with pleasure-sleep against Zayn’s side, that maybe it’s a skill worth exploring.

Presently, the buzzer rings, and Louis’s phone lights up with a text:  _ I’m outside! _ Two minutes to four o’clock, perfect timing.

Louis gets to his feet with some trepidation, running a restless hand through his hair. Niall and Zayn whoop and offer encouraging nods from the couch. Louis takes a deep breath and presses his thumb to the intercom for a few seconds, before unlocking the door. He hears Harry bounding up the stairs before he sees him, tall and gangly in the narrow little hallway.

“Louis! Hi!” He opens his arms wide. “Can I give you a hug?”

Instant heat rises in Louis’s cheeks. “Um. Sure.”

And, like a benevolent fairy, Harry folds into Louis in a graceful hug, long arms enveloping Louis with the wet scent of winter, and the subtler scent of his cologne, cool and heady.

“Nice to see you,” Harry says as he follows Louis into the apartment, shrugging out of his North Face. “And hello again, Zayn!”

“Hey,” Zayn says with a wave. “This here is our third roommate, Niall Horan.”

“Hiya!” Niall chirps.

“I’ll take that,” Louis says, draping Harry’s coat over one of the dining table chairs. “Do you want any water or anything?”

“Oh, no thank you,” Harry says.

He’s taller than Louis, taller than all three roommates, and accordingly dwarfs the apartment. Under the thick coat, it transpires that he’s wearing a black knit sweater adorned with colorful planets, a rosy Venus and a pink blue-ringed Saturn and a purple-periwinkle Jupiter. His curly brown hair— today restrained in a ballerina bun— is quickly released from its tie, tumbling down to his shoulders in messy chocolate ringlets. Louis has to restrain himself from staring at the hair in particular, which Harry cheerfully airs out and leaves wild, framing his face with unexpected sweetness.

“The wind always screws up my hair,” Harry remarks. “I prefer it down, but I have to do the bun in the winter. And in the summer, with the humidity.”

“It’s nice either way,” Louis offers.

“Thanks!”

Harry’s smile is a luminous thing— almost disarmingly so. He had been a little overwhelming in the morning Starbucks chaos on Sunday, but is even more so now, alone, standing in Louis’s apartment with nothing around to mitigate the brightness of his presence. Something knots tight behind Louis’s navel, and refuses to unravel. He frowns a little at the ground, his hand back in his hair.

“Right. Um. So we can go to my room— just over here,” Louis says, disappearing into it before he can make eye contact with Niall or Zayn. He closes the door behind them and gestures towards his bed— with the ordinary white and navy-blue checkered comforter instead of Zayn’s Avengers set. “Welcome.”

Harry surveys the room with interest as he sits on the edge of Louis’s bed. “I like the way you guys set this up.” He turns so that he can get a better look at the pictures Louis has hanging on the wall. “Is this all your family?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, sitting down a good two feet away at the edge of the bed.

“Lots of little sisters!” Harry comments, with obvious delight. “They’re so cute! How many do you have?”

“Five. And one brother. He’s here.” Louis points to one of the newer pictures of the babies.

“That’s so nice! I only have one older sister, but I always thought more siblings would be fun, especially younger ones,” Harry says.

“They’re a handful, but I adore them,” Louis admits.

“Just from the pictures, I think I do too.” Harry beams at a picture of Lottie and Daisy from six years ago, dressed as Sailor Moon and Luna. “Where are you guys from?”

“Indiana.”

“You all seem close.”

“We are.” An unbidden lump rises in the back of Louis’s throat.

“And which roommate is the Avengers fan?” Harry asks, nodding towards the comforter and the various framed movie and comic cover posters on the opposite wall.

“That’s Zayn.”

“It’s funny, my friend Liam— he’s also my roommate— is a huge Marvel fan too,” Harry says with a chuckle. “He’s got all this stuff in our apartment. I drink my coffee out of an Iron Man mug every morning.”

“Zayn’s big on Spider Man mostly, but he likes Thor and Captain America too. I like the movies, but Zayn reads all the comic books and everything.”

“He and Liam would get along,” Harry says with rather a smug smirk. But then he schools his expression back into polite, twinkly-eyed neutrality, and turns to sit cross-legged facing Louis on the bed, tucking his curls behind his ears like he means business. “Right. So. Let’s get started here, then.”

“Yeah, let me Venmo you before I forget.” Louis grabs his phone from his pocket. “Thanks again for coming all the way out here.”

“No problem at all.” He waits until Louis finishes with the phone and sets it aside before remarking, “You can come a little closer, you know. We’re going to be cuddling today after all.”

“I know,” Louis mumbles, mirroring Harry’s cross-legged position and scooting a little closer. That cologne scent is heady in his nose again with the shift in their movement.

“Listen, I know this is awkward,” Harry says patiently. “I’m a random stranger, and I’m sitting on your bed asking you to get out of your comfort zone like this— but the hope is that we can negotiate a new comfort zone together. We won’t do anything you don’t want to do. We can take it slowly.”

“So…how do we start?” Louis asks, heart in his throat.

“Well, I felt you flinch a little when I hugged you.” And, when Louis’s eyes widen with embarrassment— “No, it’s okay, I’m not judging you! I just mean— let’s start small. We can sit back against the wall, and I’ll put my arm around you, and we can see how that feels. Sound good?”

Louis nods tersely, and gets to his knees on the mattress. Harry looks so at home already as he gets in position, ankles crossed and dangling off the edge of the bed like he belongs here, his arm open to bring Louis into his side. Louis acquiesces, albeit carefully. He lets his thigh press against Harry’s as he sits beside him; lets Harry’s arm fall so that it curls naturally around Louis’s waist. His head is level with Harry’s shoulder, and after a moment of indecision, lowers his cheek so that it rests on Harry’s sweater. He holds his breath a little as Harry’s cheek comes to rest on top of Louis’s head— and yet, when Harry hums to calm him, he feels the vibration from Harry’s throat against his skin, and he does calm. His breathing evens, his racing heartbeat comforted by the steadiness of Harry’s own breaths, his chest moving up and down in time with Louis’s.

It’s a startling kind of intimacy. Louis knows the physiology of this, studied nerves and neurochemicals and the spinal cord, but he still finds himself surprised by how visceral it is. How alert his body is even as it relaxes against Harry’s. Every detail feels live and present: the bone of Harry’s jaw pressed against Louis’s skull; the warmth of Harry’s sweater, imbued so strongly with his scent, which is somehow already familiar; the softness of Harry’s palm when his hand finds Louis’s. He is as unnerved by it all as much as he is, strangely enough, okay. He wills himself to stay, to breathe; imagines how bright his cerebral cortex would look right now under an fMRI; and, as though these thoughts were transmitted by osmosis between their intertwined bodies, he feels Harry smile into his hair.

“You’re doing great, Louis,” he says. “What are you thinking about?”

“The central nervous system,” Louis admits before he can stop himself.

“Of course— medical student and all. But you know, when I started doing this, I did do some research. Like, I found this TED talk about the science of touch.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harry says with pride. “There was some research done on children in Romania in the 1970s, who lived in these terribly understaffed orphanages, and they had all kinds of physical and neurological issues as a result of not being touched and hugged enough as babies. They had attachment disorders, digestive disorders, their growth was stunted. Babies can literally die without touch. It’s a crucial part of their development.”

“I think I read that in one of my psych courses,” Louis murmurs.

“I’m sure. But it was all new to me. I was totally fascinated. And the exact science behind touch, like with neuro-pathways and stuff— scientists still can’t explain why touch is so important to our development. We know that brains actively construct our experience around touch, and that people are happier and more fulfilled when they have a lot of physical contact with other people, but it’s a less developed science than you’d think. Touch is an underrated sense. Sight and hearing are important too, of course, and taste and smell, but you can’t live without touch.”

“Has that been true for you, in your experience with cuddling?” Louis asks, gaze settling lazily on the swirling patterns on Zayn’s comforter.

“Oh yeah. That’s why I love doing this so much. I feel better after doing it, and so do my clients. So many of us are so lonely, you know?”

“I guess I didn’t,” Louis muses.

“How are you feeling now?”

“It’s still kind of weird, but. I don’t want to move, either.”

“That’s good!” Louis feels his smile again. “Let me know when you want to switch positions.”

“Mhmm.”

They’re quiet for a little while then, listening to each other breathe. Louis thinks idly of breaking the silence, of chasing a thought about somatosensory processing, but finds that it’s easier to remain quiet, and still. It’s less pressure, somehow, not having to look at each other, and simply feeling their existences in unison. He loses track of time, the minutes as languid and expansive as passing summer clouds. Harry starts absently stroking Louis’s forearm, and he feels his eyelids droop with contentment, fluttering shut as his head shifts minute positions to remain comfortable on Harry’s shoulder.

He only realizes he’s drifted when he feels the vibration in Harry’s throat again, the sensation of Harry taking a breath preceding the sound of his voice. “Hey, you still with me there?”

“Mmm.”

“Would you like to lie down?”

“Okay.”

Louis’s head feels heavy and waterlogged as he lifts it from its perch. Harry removes his arm, and it’s more disruptive than Louis could have anticipated— a sudden seizure of warmth that, in the space of minutes, became essential. But Harry pulls two pillows towards himself and lays down, guiding Louis so that he rests his head on Harry’s shoulder again, cradled securely in his arm. Their legs intwine as Louis finds a good spot, his cheek pressed against Harry’s chest— and indeed, he’s swiftly drifting away again, face buried in Harry’s sweater, engulfed in his smell, as Harry’s fingers traipse through his hair, up and down his back, in distant, gauzy pleasure…

Before he knows it, Harry is shaking him awake with some insistence, his voice low and a bit urgent: “Louis, wake up. Hey, come back.”

It takes a moment before his eyelids unglue themselves, and reopen to see Harry’s face looming over his.

“God, how long was I out?” Louis’s mouth is sticky with genuine sleep. “Feels like it’s been a while.”

“Our hour is up,” Harry confirms. “You were out cold.”

“I didn’t realize I was that tired.” Louis’s mind roams back to his sleepless morning, cleaning in the pre-dawn dark. It was by no means his first such morning, but it weighs on him differently now on this side of his nap. “Sorry.”

“No need to be sorry,” Harry chuckles. “It’s like falling asleep during a massage— another great touch-based activity I would recommend, by the way. When people genuinely relax, they give their bodies permission to rejuvenate.”

Louis doesn’t exactly feel rejuvenated— to the contrary, he’s disoriented, like he was woken up in the middle of the night— but he does feel a marrow-deep contentment purring in his bones. He rubs his eyes and sits up, woozy with sleep. But Harry is still smiling serenely, waiting for Louis to come back to himself. It does take another minute or two before he feels prepared to stand and escort Harry out of the apartment.

Before he opens the door, though, he has to ask. “Did you sleep too, or was it just me?”

“I had to watch the time,” Harry says gently.

Louis nods, and shows Harry back to the living room. Niall and Zayn are still sitting on the couch— Zayn, reading the same book, and Niall, fast asleep on his lap, mouth open and wet with saliva. Harry grins at the sight.

“See, Niall’s got it right,” he tells Louis. “I don’t know why society insists we only sleep beside romantic partners, it’s so good for our brains when we sleep with other people.”

“Only problem is, he’s like a boulder on me, and I’ve reread my assignment almost three times waiting for him to get up,” Zayn says, looking down at Niall with mingled irritation and affection. “I’m just extremely well-prepared for class now, I guess.”

“Do you want a hand? We can transfer him to a stack of pillows,” Harry offers.

“Please,” Zayn says gratefully.

Harry and Louis bring three pillows from Niall’s room, and with Zayn’s help, shift Niall onto them with care. Niall barely notices and sleeps on, while Zayn makes a run for the bathroom. “Nice to meet you, Harry!” he calls back over his shoulder as he shuts the door.

“Isn’t he going to wake Niall if he yells?” Harry asks, though he’s beaming.

“Niall can sleep through just about any kind of sound,” Louis explains. “Same with Zayn. They’re both heavy sleepers. I’m the one who isn’t. Usually.”

“It could be some anxiety talking,” Harry suggests. “Because you slept really well just now.” Unspoken in his discreet tone is the literalness of his mental health— the precarious nature of which, by virtue of Caroline’s referral, can be inferred. But Louis just shrugs.

“Well, either way, thank you for, um. For this.”

“It was no problem at all, I’m glad we got to do it.” And Harry seems to mean that, expression soft as he puts on his coat.

“Is there any follow-up or anything?”

“If you could leave fill out a feedback form on my Cuddlist profile, I would be so grateful. Here’s my card.” Harry reaches into his wallet and pulls out a business card. “Reviews are important to let me know what I can do differently next time. And it’s all totally anonymous, it won’t tell me which comments are yours. Otherwise, there’s nothing, really. Unless you want to schedule another appointment, which we can do by text or email.”

“Do people often do more than one session?” Louis asks, pink in the cheeks again.

“It’s fifty-fifty,” Harry says. “Sometimes they think once was a great adventure and they’re done, and other times they think they would benefit from more time. It’s completely up to you. I’ll still give you a half rate if you want to do this again.”

“Do…you think I should?”

The question seems to dangle in the air between them, tentative and a little raw. But Harry’s answering smile is almost unbearably kind.

“It really is up to you, Louis,” he says. “But if you want to schedule another meeting, I would be happy to see you again.”

Louis tries to smile back, but something anxious and inexplicable wells up in his chest, like a rising tide that might choke him if he moves too fast. He isn’t sure what changes, only that Harry looks different to him in this moment after what they just shared; that he suddenly feels both far-flung and intimately close at hand; that his otherwise neutral, abstractly attractive features have both sharpened and softened and transformed themselves into a picture that Louis knows, now, and feels a kinship with, however tenuously. Like two reconstituted versions of themselves were wearing their bodies and meeting for the first and second time simultaneously. He crosses his arms as if to contain the burst of emotion in his chest— protect an exposed vulnerability inside of himself, from something intangible he cannot name.

“I, um. I’ll text you,” he manages at last, and Harry nods.

“Sure, just let me know whenever works for you, and we’ll figure something out.”

He removes his tie from his wrist and gathers his hair back into a bun for the ride back. His grin is an arresting thing, with the line of his jaw left bare and unmitigated by the curls. He opens his arms once more, and this time Louis accepts his hug without hesitation.

“See you when I see you,” Harry says cheerfully. “Bye, Louis.”

He lets go, pulls his fur-lined hood over his head, and disappears down the staircase.

Feeling oddly bereft, Louis returns to the living room and sinks into the ancient single-seat recliner, brow furrowed in thought. After a minute, Zayn returns as well, and pulls a kitchen stool up to Louis’s armrest.

“Hey, you all done? How’d it go?” he asks, eyes bright and eager.

“It was…fine. I basically slept for most of the time.”

“Yeah?” Zayn sounds excited. “Was it a good nap?”

“Probably the deepest sleep of my life.”

“That’s good! You’d worried yourself into a cleaning frenzy today, so I’m sure you needed the rest. How are you feeling?”

“Just. Really odd, I don’t know.”

“Makes sense,” Zayn says, patting Louis’s arm in sympathy. “You’ve had a long day. You wanna go take another nap? I can wake you up in an hour if you want.”

“I have a lot of work to get to, I didn’t expect to be this tired—”

“Do it later. Sleep now. Come on, let’s go.”

Zayn drags Louis up off the recliner and frog-marches him back to their bedroom. Louis’s comforter is still rumpled from where he and Harry had so recently lain— an obvious fact, but also a grounding one, a reminder that despite his hazy state, Louis did not dream up Harry’s presence. He gets into bed while Zayn supervises, pointedly tucks himself in until Zayn chortles and closes the door behind him.

It’s both easier and stranger to drift back to that deep sleep he was wrenched from. His body so clearly wants to go back to it, but to do so alone feels humbling. Almost…lonely. Louis is as frustrated as he is taken aback by his own reactions, by the unfiltered intensity of them. He curls up with his face towards the wall, all the pictures of his family smiling down from above him, and surrenders to his unconscious.

  
  



	3. three

* * *

Harry has known Liam since they were twelve years old— through the tragedies of science tests and sibling in-fighting, the triumphs of bleacher-side hook-ups and their college acceptances. So, by this point in their lives and their friendship, he can accurately discern when A Talk is brewing.

Liam’s tells at twenty-three are the same as they were when he was thirteen, and fifteen, and nineteen: stiff, noble silences in unguarded moments; waves of cheeriness, relentless to the point of suspicion; a general atmosphere of gathering storm clouds, a kind of interpersonal humidity building to an imminent breaking point. But because Harry does indeed know Liam well enough to notice his tells, in the wake of his appointment with Louis and his breezy mention of Zayn’s Avengers bedsheets, he also knows better than to trap Liam into direct confrontation on such a delicate subject. So, with considerable difficulty, Harry maintains his composure, and waits out Liam’s surrender.

He manages to hold out for a full eight days.

The scene: their living room on Monday evening, curled up on their two battered single-seat couches under two layers of blankets each. Liam is sipping hot chocolate and frowning at his phone, while Harry, munching on a large bowl of popcorn, tries not to smear too much fake butter on his laptop keys as he edits photos he took in the afternoon of a client’s baby shower. He has his headphones in for a task like this— the _Lord of the Rings_ soundtrack, to inject some much-needed epicness into these proceedings— so it takes him a moment to realize Liam is attempting to catch his eye.

“What’s up, Lima Bean?” asks Harry, tilting his laptop screen a little lower to better appreciate the full breadth of Liam’s body language. He seems tense, shoulders hunched and his mouth pursed tiny with grumpiness.

“I haven’t gotten _any_ decent Tinder matches in at least two months, and I’m starting to feel like a cursed goblin-troll haunting a bridge,” Liam announces. “Did I, by any chance, turn into a cursed goblin-troll under a bridge while I wasn’t looking?”

“God no, you’re gorgeous! If I didn’t, you know, _know_ you, and I met you in a club, I’d buy you a drink.” Harry grins. “Think, like, sexy naive elf crossing the bridge without realizing how sexy he is, which makes him even sexier.”

Liam’s cheeks promptly pink. “You think so?”

“‘Course I do. Where’s this coming from?”

“Just, you know. Dating is hard.” He sighs. “I… I feel like I’m doing something wrong? Like something’s wrong with me, maybe?”

There is a brittleness in his voice that makes Harry lower the lid of his laptop, giving Liam a greater share of his attention span.

“Why do you think there’s something wrong with you?” he asks after a beat.

“This stuff’s never been easy for me, the way it is for you,” says Liam, fiddling with his watch, eyes averted down. “Like, connecting with people, and having casual sex, and stuff like that. You make it look…effortless.”

“Because I’m just having fun, and you’re actually trying to build something that lasts.” Harry’s smile is warm. “You’re a good egg, Payno. The very best noodle. In fact, you’re the greatest damn bento box the world has ever been confounded by. Just don’t overthink it. You’re doing fine.”

A grateful smile flickers on Liam’s lips, but then he is quiet for a while, brows pinched and impassive once more as he studies the phone in his hands. Harry, who senses the conversation isn’t quite finished yet, returns to photo-editing, though with his headphones off.

Indeed, his instincts are rewarded a few minutes later, when Liam asks, low and tentative: “Haz, how did you _know?”_

Harry looks up. “Know what?”

“Know…that you weren’t straight.”

Liam’s brown eyes are so tender, even from across the room, draped in an armor of blankets, phone clutched like a shield in front of his chest. Harry closes the lid of his computer and sets it aside, suddenly a little tender himself.

“I knew when I was a kid, but that’s not how it goes for everyone,” he says. “We live in a homophobic society, so sometimes it can take years for people to come to terms with their queerness. Like Alex on _Supergirl,_ remember?”

Liam goes very still, like he’s weighing his words with some care. He sets his phone down on his lap and starts shredding his fingernails.

“I’ve been having weird dreams,” he finally admits to his hands. “About, um. Zayn.”

It takes every scrap of self-control in Harry’s body not to react as his delighted instinct demands.

“Yeah?” he asks, expression (hopefully) aloof.

“Yeah! I had to run an emergency wash yesterday because I was out of underwear! I haven’t had to do that since I was in middle school!” Liam’s voice cracks with it, anxiety and amusement in equal parts bright in his wide eyes. “It’s been brutal, Haz, I keep thinking about this guy, and I can’t concentrate, and I’m trying to get on Tinder to distract myself and it’s not doing anything for me either. It’s— it’s not _right.”_

Harry quirks an eyebrow. “How do you mean?”

“It’s just—” Liam wrings his hands with the apparent chaos he’s trying to put into words. “It’s not how it’s supposed to _be,_ you know? Like, I’m interested in women. I date women. And you’re the one who dates men. And that’s great, and that’s you, and it’s _your thing._ I’ve never— it’s never been me having dreams about a man. It’s a role reversal, and I don’t understand, like— why me? And why now? You’ve been teasing me for years and I just— what did you see in me?”

Harry melts a little, an overwhelming entropy of fondness and sympathy and inevitability in his chest that seems at odds with Liam’s stricken expression.

“I teased you primarily because it was fun, I’m not a sea witch or Professor Trelawney or anything. I also believe, just politically and ethically speaking, that heterosexuality is not the baseline norm, so you can’t knock anything ‘til you’ve tried it. But also…”

“What?” Liam asks anxiously.

“I don’t know, I mean— you’ve always pinged, and not just to me,” Harry says with a shrug. “Though of course you’d be the last to know it. Even in high school, you were so busy chasing after cheerleaders that you failed to notice all the closeted twinks lining up to drool over you in the locker room. The soccer-sculpted abs, the boy band haircut, the puppy eyes and dreamy smile…you were the complete package. Pun intended.”

“Oh my god, can we just be serious about this for, like, five minutes?” Liam demands, voice brittle.

“I am, actually. I’m being serious. This isn’t a crisis situation; it’s an innocent crush, and that’s totally normal.” Harry’s smile flickers with humor and unmistakable gentleness. “And the twinks _were_ all into you; never forget, I was a true drama club cliché in high school, hanging out with all the other gay misfits, and so I was privy to a number of sexual awakenings that you inspired. Troye Sivan, for one,” Harry counts on his fingers. “Shawn Mendes— he was mildly obsessed with you. Hell, even Camila Cabello figured out she was a lesbian when you were going out with Danielle and she couldn’t stop staring at her instead of you.”

Liam’s eyes widen, temporarily speechless and fish-mouthed. When he recovers enough to find words: “How have you never told me this before?”

“I was entrusted with young queer secrets, Payno, confidentiality matters. And anyway, you weren’t ready to hear it.”

“I guess not,” Liam concedes. “It’s just…I’ve never had a crush like this before. It’s literally stalking my dreams. And I’ve been feeling lately like I’ve been in a rut, and all of a sudden this Zayn guy comes along and punches me in the dick.”

“But that can be a fun feeling too,” Harry says, his eyes twinkling. “One hundred percent seriousness here, I repeat— this is not a crisis situation.”

“But it might be.” Liam’s expression sobers. “It could change everything. You know my parents and I are close, but they could barely stand to watch Mitch and Cam hug on _Modern_ freaking _Family,_ so…”

“One thing at a time,” says Harry. “We can deal with your parents later. For now, it’s important for you to nurse this crush and process what it means to you. Don’t try to stifle it, that’s not usually how these things work.”

“But I’m never going to see him again,” Liam points out. “I’m inclined towards stifling.”

“Because it’s worked out so well for you so far. Exhibit: laundry.”

Liam’s cheeks flush pink. “I’ll get better with practice.”

“No, you won’t. I wish I could help, but I don’t know that I would be able to ask my client for his roommate’s phone number without raising some ethical quandaries,” Harry concedes. “And that’s only if I ever see Louis again.”

“Do you think he’ll book another session?” Liam asks, reaching a little T-Rex arm out of his blanket nest to resume drinking his now cooled hot chocolate.

“Maybe. I hope so. It just seemed like he could use some more rest and a safe place, that’s all. He didn’t like being touched at first, but then he was asleep within five minutes.”

“Impressive,” says Liam. “I’ve never had anyone relax that quickly with me.”

“Zayn did,” Harry points out. “Love at first sight, dare I say?”

Liam’s cheeks turn a rather satisfying pink. “Nah, it wasn’t like that,” he mumbles, equal parts wistful and wilting. “He was there for his friend and he was being polite. And I’m sure he’s not— not interested.”

“When he wasn’t focusing on Louis, he couldn’t keep his eyes off you,” Harry says with a slight smirk. “Trust me. He pinged too.”

But somehow, this only makes Liam deflate, curl deeper into his blankets. “Well, it’s not like it matters either way,” he says, only petulant now. “It’s like I said, I’m never going to see him again. None of this is actually going to come to anything in the end. I just have to pull myself together and get on with things— once I figure out how to do that.”

Harry can only sigh, a small physical acknowledgment of the unbridgeable distance between this complicated way he feels and the right words to express it. He remembers his first boy crush, a freckled saxophone player in his seventh grade English class named Charlie— the heady highs and the devastating lows of ultimately unrequited love. He remembers Liam in high school— so straight-laced in every sense of the term— desperately chasing after cheerleaders and football bros and the kind of social validation that always seemed to fit him like a poorly tailored coat, all lumps and bad stitching around the shoulders. He remembers the striking difference in Liam at Starbucks that Sunday, finally alight and alive and finally wearing himself comfortably when smiling at Zayn. And he remembers Louis Tomlinson, asleep in his arms like no one has ever been before; how it felt to guard over his sleeping vulnerability; how it felt to be twenty himself, irreverent and also more guarded than people ever guessed; so insecure, and yet unsure how to be anyone except the person he already was.

“I think,” he says slowly, “that with some people, they kind of— they’re only meant to light up the sky for you once, and then that’s it, you just have to find a way to live in the new world they’ve made. You know what I mean?”

Liam nods, brown eyes serious. “I think so.”

He returns to his phone then, scrolling idly, like the air is mostly clear but a little raw. Harry, too, returns to photo-editing on his laptop, though he leaves his headphones off. He’s gotten good at this by now, Photoshop filters and lighting as second-nature to him as driving when he’s in the suburbs, procedures and shortcuts already written into the electric flesh of his muscles— and so, as he absently brightens and beautifies someone else’s special occasion, his body hums with revelation, with a kind of world-shifting. Liam, and the anxious newness of his feelings, and the way he is something bright and grounded in Harry’s little universe of near-perpetual motion.

The sky feels like it’s alight for just a moment tonight. It takes a moment more for the eyes to adjust.

 

.

 

The month of January seems to pass by all at once, a blur of bitter cold and accumulating responsibilities. While photography gigs tend to dry up in the winter months, cuddling appointments usually do the opposite; Harry and Liam leave business cards near hospitals and medical clinics and bus stops, and seasonal depression is, unfortunately, quite good for business. So between commuting around the city for appointments, working all hours both at the bar and legal aid clinic, and trying to fit LSAT prep time into the precious few remaining hours, the beginning of February— including Harry’s twenty-fourth birthday— very nearly sneaks up on him.

He honestly doesn’t give it much thought until he gets a text from Nick Grimshaw during a lull at Legal Aid two days before, on the last day of the month when his mind is mostly focused on making rent: _so what’s the deal, u got bday plans on wed or what?_

Harry, smirking: _very kind of you to remember, do i have facebook to thank for this thoughtfulness?_

_no comment. wanna come over for a special birthday cuddle tomorrow night?_

_working tomorrow til eight, can come by after_

_yaaaaay see u then bday boy……. :)_

Harry snorts aloud, and tucks his phone away into his pocket. He’d had half a thought to spend the evening in question catching up on some TV while drinking a beer and flipping through LSAT notes, but with the renewed awareness of this auspicious occasion, he begins scheming to get Saturday night off work, and making a mental list of people and possible locations for this birthday celebration. It’s been a while since Harry has actually gone out clubbing, and getting gloriously drunk in a bar he doesn’t work at sounds like excellent self-care after a solid month of professional hustling.

He immediately retrieves his phone to text Liam these insights, to which Liam replies, _smh i can’t believe your dumb ass forgot your own birthday, i’ve got a present and everything._ Then: _it’s cake for dinner and an iron man marathon so don’t make plans for wednesday._ And, a second later: _dumbass._

Smirking fondly, Harry puts his phone away a second time, and manages to do his filing with a modicum of cheerfulness for the rest of the afternoon.

The next day— his last one being twenty-three— he manages to convince the other bartender at One Direction to swap two unsavory closing shifts in exchange for Saturday off, and sends a mass text warning friends and acquaintances that they will be buying him many, many drinks this weekend at the bar of his choice. Most of the invitees have already confirmed their presence by the time Harry leaves One Direction and makes his way to Nick’s apartment in West Loop. The night is already pitch black and frigid, though shivering revelers in tottering heels bravely traverse the city’s sidewalks. Harry, grateful not to be working a closing shift tonight, knocks on Nick’s door at nearly nine PM in his good pair of black jeans, eager for warm refuge. Nick’s voice floats out from inside, saying the door is unlocked. Harry, grinning already, opens the door and steps inside.

In the living room, backlit only by the windows overlooking downtown, stands Nick Grimshaw, stark naked, his mischievous smile illuminated by the small, flickering flame of a candle stuck to the top end of an orange in his hands.

“Happy birthday, Haz,” he says in a dusky voice, albeit quivering with laughter.

“How long have you been standing there like that, with all of Chicago looking at your ass?” Harry asks, taking off his parka and accepting the orange, the candlelight now reflecting off both their faces.

“Long enough. Thought my favorite booty call deserved something a little extra special, though I couldn’t make it to a bakery today— and, incidentally, you’re welcome for the view, Chicago.”

“I can’t decide if you’re the best or the worst,” Harry says, blowing out the candle and leaning in for a kiss.

“Definitely the best,” Nick answers, his dick already hard against the groin of Harry’s jeans.

 

.

 

They’ve been doing this since Harry was a junior and Nick was a senior in college— the queer scene in Rogers Park tiny to the point of claustrophobia, and the two of them drawn to each other’s easy wit and mutual disinterest in commitment. Even in the city proper after graduation, they still choose each other a couple of times a month, just to take the edge off— no drama, no strings, but also none of the indifferent anonymity (or STI risk) of Tinder one night stands. They know what the other likes: Nick’s birthday present to Harry is a thorough ass eating that leaves him panting and squirming inchoately into his pillow, and Harry reciprocates by letting Nick top and set the pace, coming inside of him hard and fast and cathartic. By the time they’re finished, Harry is warm and boneless and content to stay in bed awhile: he and Nick are both professional cuddlers after all, and the after-haze is almost better than the sex itself. Almost.

Nick retires briefly to the kitchen while Harry catches his breath, and when he returns it’s with a joint and an enormous sack of oranges. Apparently, Aldi was having a sale. They light up in Nick’s bed, put on _The Office_ for background noise and peel the fruit together, juice sticky on their fingers as they trade sections of orange and the joint and the occasional kiss back and forth, the salt and the sweet and the musk of each other playing off in a strangely comforting synergy. Harry sits nestled between Nick’s legs, his head leaning back against Nick’s collarbone, while Nick rests his chin on Harry’s head, his arms wrapped around Harry’s waist, absently stroking his stomach, his waist.

When the joint runs out, and they’re both pleasantly buzzed and full with oranges, Nick chuckles softly as he nibbles on Harry’s ear, nosing against his curls. “We have about an hour before you’re twenty-four. What are your hopes and dreams for this year, young Harold?”

“Law school, Nicholas,” Harry says, craning his neck to direct Nick’s attention to that sensitive skin. “I hope and dream about decent loan packages, financial aid, and a shit-hot brand-name university to stamp my diploma for me so that I may one day enjoy sacks of money along with my discount fruit. Oh, and more excellent sex like this, of course.”

“Harvard would be lucky to have you,” says Nick, stealing Harry’s orange slice from his hands and biting down playfully on his neck. “Although I don’t know how long I can promise you sex, you insatiable minx.” A pause. “I may have met someone.”

“Oh?”

“Mhmm.” Nick grins against Harry’s cheek. “He’s a _doctor,_ too. A pediatrician.”

“And you’re his slutty peds nurse? How _Grey’s Anatomy_ of you. Is he very McDreamy? Or McSteamy, for that matter?”

“He’s more McCutie than McSteamy,” muses Nick, chewing his orange slice thoughtfully. “He’s got curly brown hair, and he wears glasses, and he’s an utter teddy bear. He’s twenty-eight, divorced as of a year ago, and he wants to take things _slow.”_

“How slow?” Harry asks, interest piqued.

“Like… I’ve known him four weeks and I haven’t had sex with him yet.”

Harry whistles sharply. “Damn. I’m actually impressed. So you’re not his slutty nurse after all.”

“It’s not for a lack of trying. I’ve finally understood the fascination with delayed gratification, to be honest.”

“You know, I thought you were so into it tonight because you were trying to bring me to twenty-four with a bang, and now I know you were just sublimating your repressed sexual desire for McCutie— it’s kind of insulting to the ego,” Harry says with a laugh.

“Oh, darling, you’re always going to be my very favorite booty call-slash-snuggle buddy. But Dr. Will Nelson may soon agree to be mine, and we’ll just have to settle for fully-clothed drinks, if you can stand it.”

But Harry laughs easily, and without design. “I definitely can. I’m happy for you, Nick! He sounds nice.”

“God help me, but I want to wine and dine this one,” Nick says, sounding giddier than he has all night. “Once it's official, you’ll have to meet him.”

“So I can warn him off you with all your dirty little secrets?” Harry teases.

But Nick just beams.

“That’s the whole thing with Will, Haz. I’m practically lining up to tell him my dirty little secrets, and he still hasn’t run screaming yet!”

“Whaaaaat!” Harry exclaims. “But no, I’m serious, I’m really happy for you. Although, a little sad for me, because finding a new booty call as good as you won’t be easy.”

“You could just go ahead and find a boyfriend while you’re at it,” Nick points out. “A secure, long-term booty call you can also have meals with. And buy furniture with. And tell your own dirty secrets to.”

“That’s one option too, I suppose.” Harry’s expression remains relaxed, but there’s something in his eyes that Nick seems to sense, which closes this particular subject off from further probing.

Instead, Harry rolls out of Nick’s lap, and gets himself another orange from the bag on the floor. He takes it to the kitchen, where he locates Nick’s alcohol collection, a mixing bowl, and some ice. He squeezes the juice out of the orange, and mixes a quick orange blossom, cold and heady and sweet. He can’t quite find the martini glasses, so he just pours the drink into two wine glasses, the portion looking comically small in this particular vessel. When he returns to the bedroom, Nick looks up from his phone and beams once more.

“Ooh, what’s this?” he asks, making grabby hands for his glass. “I seriously love that you’re a bartender.”

“And I appreciate that you somehow _did_ have a good vermouth hiding out in your liquor cabinet,” Harry returns. “Where did that come from?”

“We did a mixed drinks thing here for Janice’s birthday party last month, everyone had to bring something fancy,” Nick explains as he swallows down a healthy gulp. “Fuck, this is _good._ What is this, an orange blossom?”

“Yeah, and if you’d had the sense and good manners to wait for a second, I made it to toast,” Harry says, raising his glass. “To you and Dr. Will. May you fare better in life than you would as characters on _Grey’s Anatomy.”_

Nick just cackles, and finishes the rest of his drink. He’s back on Harry in a minute, taking his glass away and climbing on top of him, the taste of gin sharp on both their tongues— and as midnight strikes, Harry celebrates with yet another orgasm, Nick fingering him to an inch of his sanity and leaving such vivid hickeys on his neck that he is grateful for a winter-season birthday.

 

.

 

Harry ducks out of Nick’s place at around two in the morning, while Nick snores away in post-coital bliss. It’s nothing personal, and Harry does it every time— slips away from his lovers’ beds before dawn so that he can sleep in his own bed and start his day with a shower and fresh clothes. He gets a few hours of rest tonight, then jumps right back into his Wednesday, albeit with some birthday sparkle lingering like glitter on his skin. The day winds up being better and more festive than he expected: his mother and sister both call, his mom’s two brothers too, and the crew at Legal Aid have a cake for him even though he’s only an intern. After he’s done for the day, he goes home, where Liam awaits with the promised cake— one he baked himself, Harry is touched to see, his favorite chocolate and raspberry.

“It was actually cheaper than buying a big cake, so don’t go getting a big head about it,” Liam says, but he’s smiling with such obvious affection, with a random smear of baking chocolate on his cheek, that Harry gives him a real hug, kisses the mark off of Liam’s face.

“You’re the best, Payno,” he says. “I’ll do the dishes.”

“I won’t say no to that,” Liam laughs. “I’ll start up _Iron Man.”_

They pass a cheerful time on the living room couch, eating Liam’s addictive cake until they’re both sick with it, chasing it down with sparkling water and later, some excellent champagne. When the first movie ends and Liam starts up the second, though, he asks, almost incidentally, “So where were you last night?”

“What do you mean?” Harry asks, licking some extra frosting off his empty plate.

“You usually get done by eight on Tuesday, and I actually brought the champagne to open last night, at midnight,” Liam admits.

“Aww, Leeyum!” Harry flings himself onto Liam in another hug. “Why are you the purest cloud in the whole galaxy?”

“It’s not a big deal or anything,” Liam says, allowing Harry to slot in around him as his big spoon. “I was just curious.”

“Grimmy wanted to give me a ‘special birthday cuddle,’” Harry says with a smirk, dangling his finger quotes in Liam’s face. “We had sex three times and smoked a joint. And ate oranges.”

“Oranges?”

“Aldi was having a sale.”

“Right.” But Liam still looks thoughtful. “What’s _with_ you two, anyway? Why don’t you just date like normal people instead of insisting on this friends with benefits crap?”

“Because we really are friends who like to get each other off sometimes,” Harry says. “And anyway, he told me last night he’s met someone.”

“He told you this… while he had his dick in you?”

“No, no, he’d already removed his dick at that particular juncture,” Harry assures him.

“But he’s basically already dating _you,_ why is he out meeting other people?” Liam gets an adorable crease between his brows when he’s thinking this hard.

“We have a good time. It’s just fun. It’s not like we’re in love or anything.”

“Yeah, god forbid Harry Styles ever goes and does something as cliché as fall in _love_ with anyone,” Liam remarks dryly.

“It’s not about being, or not being, a cliché,” Harry laughs, nuzzling into the nape of Liam’s neck. “I’m not, like, _opposed_ to it. I just don’t tend to fall in love. And I don’t require people to commit themselves to me to enjoy their company, or their genitals.”

“But you and Nick have been together for about three years now. You click, clearly. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“It only means I like him as a person, and I like having sex with him more than I do with other people. But— I don’t know, I don’t date. You know I don’t date. It’s hard for me to, like… get attached that way.”

Liam mulls this over while the movie plays on.

“Why do you think that is? That you don’t get attached easily, I mean?” he asks eventually. “You make friends so easily. People like you. And it seems like you like people too. Or maybe you don’t?”

Harry can only shrug. “I do like people. I like you. We’re attached— here you are.”

“Sure— but you’re going to need more than just me in your life.”

“Nonsense, of course you’re more than enough for me, Leeyum,” Harry says, snuggling in closer and hooking his leg over Liam’s.

“All I’m saying is, it wouldn’t be the worst thing if you let yourself date, and fall in love, every once in a while,” Liam says dryly, patting Harry on the arm. “It’s good for the soul.”

“So is taking initiative, sparing your underwear and my nerves and your laundry budget, and finally having sex with the most gorgeous man that’ll take you— but here you are, taking things at your own pace.” Harry smiles prettily into Liam’s hair. “Haven’t you noticed how generous I’ve been lately, giving you all this space to come to terms with your sexuality? You’re welcome.”

“I have noticed,” Liam says. “And I do appreciate it. I just want you to consider the idea of sticking around with someone, is all. Good things take time, but you need an open mind to start with.”

Harry nods, but otherwise goes quiet, lets Liam think it’s because he’s focused on the movie and the last remnants of cake and champagne. Liam is such a comforting presence on this couch, smelling like chocolate and the Old Spice he uses, rich and sweet and a little spicy; he is at ease with Harry curled up behind and half on top of him, their intimacy as casual and essential as their breathing. Liam isn’t wrong, is the thing: Harry lets very few people in the world know him the way he has let Liam know him.

He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but part of Liam’s initial draw back in their middle school days was a queer one— a sense of superficial attraction at first, but mostly, as their long, loyal friendship developed in a conservative zip code, an intangible, intuitive thread of affinity. Of kin recognizing kin. Liam is kind eyes, and gentle, understated strength— and safety. The only person in the world in whose arms Harry’s every muscle unclenches. He’s not sure how or why that is, but if this is what it is to let someone in, he might as well be an emotional and romantic virgin.

They finish _Iron Man 2_ in companionable silence, picking at the last of the snacks. When the end credits roll, Harry disentangles himself from Liam and pads over to the kitchen to clean up. Liam yawns and seats himself at one of the bar stools by the kitchen counter, watching as Harry wipes down the stove.

“Sorry, I would help, but it’s been a long day,” he says.

“No worries,” says Harry. “You fed us so nicely, you’ve earned it. Thanks for an awesome birthday present.”

Liam just smiles sleepily, and opens his phone to check Twitter.

When the kitchen is done, and Liam has apprised Harry of all the day’s digital happenings, Harry pulls his own phone out to check birthday texts, when he catches sight of one particular notification and beams.

“Who’s that from?” Liam asks.

“It’s from Louis, a couple hours ago! He wants to book another session!” It even takes Harry aback, how pleased he is to hear from Louis Tomlinson. “Good for him, I’m going to try to see him this weekend.”

Liam turns conspicuously pink. Harry, correctly interpreting the gesture, says, “If I see Zayn, I’ll find a way to work your name into the conversation. Promise.”

“I don’t want to bother—” he mumbles, but the protestation is so weak that he doesn’t even attempt to finish the sentence. Harry, however, is still typing on his phone.

“I’m asking him for Friday ideally, Saturday morning, or Sunday very late afternoon, so I can fit him in around my belated birthday extravaganza.”

“One of those should definitely work. Or, you know, you could just wait until next week.”

“He looked a little terrified when I asked if he wanted to book another session, so I feel like this is some real character development for him to text me now,” Harry explains, setting the phone down. “If you think _I’m_ not an open person, Louis might as well be a treasure chest sealed by the sands of centuries.”

“Sounds like you two are a match made in heaven, then,” Liam remarks. “I’m gonna crash now. Sleep well, Haz.”

“Night,” Harry calls out over his shoulder to Liam’s retreating back, eyes still on his screen.

 

.

 

They eventually agree on Saturday morning, at 11am: Louis declines Friday outright, and Harry would prefer to keep him well clear of both Saturday night’s anticipated debauchery and Sunday’s hungover aftermath. He doesn’t think much of it, until he’s getting dressed on the day in question— his usual attire for clients, soft black leggings and t-shirt, extra deodorant and a little mousse for his curls— when he realizes that Louis is his only real professional commitment this weekend. By switching out his shift at One Direction and scheduling regular clients for next week, in pursuit of one light weekend amidst his hectic work schedule, it’s only Louis he sets out into this winter cold to see.

He finds he doesn’t mind, though. Weekend mornings have a certain peace and stillness to them, and the air feels fresh. And the trains are running on time, for once, so he is even a little early, getting off the train at Noyes Street and walking the two short blocks to Louis’s building. Evanston is sleepy and slushy, gray snow-water lapping up against Harry’s worn winter boots; but, thankfully, he’s buzzed in the moment he arrives, and the front door is already open and waiting when he gets upstairs.

“Good morning,” Harry calls out, walking into the apartment and shedding his coat.

“Hi.” Louis emerges from the kitchen, clutching a Spider-Man mug with both hands. “I just made coffee, do you want any?”

“Oh, no, I’m fine, thank you.”

But Harry’s smile is warm and wide as he takes in the sight of Louis, who moves with a different kind of energy this time. Cozier, easier— more at-home and lived-in, with his green knitted cardigan and tousled hair and bare feet. He’s wearing his glasses again, like he was the first time they met, but seeing them here, at home on a weekend morning, they somehow give him an even younger, more domestic vibe. As though he didn’t feel like putting in his contacts because he’s staying in today, and he’s letting Harry into this privileged space that is so personal in every sense of the word.

“I was glad to get your text,” Harry says, as Louis leads him back to his bedroom. “You seemed on the fence before— what changed your mind?”

The beds aren’t made this time either, the room not so stiffly clean. Louis tosses one of Zayn’s pillows at Harry and then flops onto his own, warming his feet inside the rumpled comforter.

“I’m not totally sure, to be honest,” he admits, offering Harry some of the blanket too. “I asked my therapist about it, and she was talking to me about closure and aftercare, like, in the therapeutic sense.” His cheeks go inadvertently pink. “So I figured I would give it a try.”

“She’s right, aftercare is really important,” Harry says. “Like a debrief, just making sure you’ve got the space to process your feelings.”

“It felt silly to need it in this case, though. All I did was sleep.”

“No, you relaxed,” Harry corrects. “You let your body enter a state of vulnerability, which is not a passive process. You needed the sleep— and now you need to talk about it. There’s nothing silly about any of that.”

“It was just surprising,” Louis says, and doesn’t elaborate, suddenly very interested in looking down at his fingernails.

“It’s okay to feel awkward, you know; everybody does.” Harry hesitates a moment, then reaches out to gently tap two fingers under Louis’s chin, to lift his face, bring his eyes back to his own eye level. A touch of static adds an electricity that seems to strike lightning in Louis’s already-startling blue eyes, as Harry’s hand moves to touch Louis’s forearm, settling on his wrist— like an anchor of sorts, something to ground them both. “Touch can be really intimate, and we’re still strangers to each other. Awkwardness is normal. But all we’re really trying to do here is… connect. Open up.”

Louis seems to shrink back in himself, despite sitting absolutely still. And yet, it’s not a shuttered, closed-off kind of shrinking: the only thing Harry sees in Louis’s widened eyes is fear, pure and honest and unfiltered.

“I’m, um. Not great at opening up,” Louis says, soft as birdtalk. “And I don’t know why it gets so intense so fast with me, I’m sorry—”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Harry says at once, his thumb rubbing circles against one of the delicate bones in Louis’s wrist. “It’s okay if it’s intense, and it’s okay if it’s not. Let’s— here, this might be easier for you—”

Harry guides Louis into a spooning position under the comforter, his body curling around Louis’s like a protective shell, the curve of Louis’s back fitting snugly against Harry’s torso. It takes a moment for them to settle— for the tension to leak out of Louis’s muscles, for Harry’s arm to find its spot, draped loosely over Louis’s waist. But after a couple of minutes, Louis’s breaths are slow and regular, and even Harry has melted a little, with the soft pillow and the vaguely sweet scent of Louis’s hair and their shared heat under the blanket.

“Is this okay?” Harry asks, and feels Louis’s nod before he sees it. “Good, good. Sometimes it’s easier to talk without eye contact, so I thought this position might help.”

“Yeah, kind of.”

Louis goes quiet then, but Harry has been doing this job long enough to correctly interpret a person’s silence most of the time. It’s an instinct more than anything else— a sense that develops, for whether someone wants to withdraw, or whether they need an invitation to speak again. Harry counts to five in his head, then asks, “What are you thinking about now?”

“Nothing really,” he says.

“Are you comfortable right now?”

“Yes, actually.” A beat. “It’s funny— growing up, I was always surrounded by my little sisters, and they had their own beds of course, but they preferred crowding into mine and falling asleep in a giant kitten pile.”

“That must have been adorable. Your mom must have so many great pictures.”

“She does.” Harry can hear the smile in his voice.

“So you have four little sisters, and then the baby twins, right?”

“Mhmm.”

“It’s cool you come from a big family. I think I mentioned last time that I only have one sister.”

“Are you close?”

“She’s five years older than me, and she’s a consultant, so she is a real adult who makes real money. We talk on the phone every couple of weeks.”

“I call home at least once every day,” Louis says.

“And where is home, again?”

“Benton, Indiana. Population: three thousand.”

Harry whistles low.

“Yeah. Evanston was a pretty big change.”

“Why’d you decide to come out here? Where did you do your undergrad?”

“I’m here because I’m part of this program at Northwestern— it’s called HPME? It’s basically a joint B.A.-M.D., so you do your undergrad coursework and then automatically shift over to Feinberg for medical school.”

“Seriously? So you’re telling me you’re basically a genius.”

Louis chuckles, his shoulders shaking endearingly against Harry’s. “I guess technically, yeah. I graduated from high school when I was sixteen.”

“What?! Hang on—” Harry does the math in his head “— so, that makes you, what, twenty-one and in med school?”

“I won’t be twenty-one til December.” Louis sounds like he’s enjoying this. “I took summer courses and finished undergrad in three years. Majored in biology.”

“So I am in the presence of a baby genius.” Harry whistles again. “Wow.”

“I just always liked books. And science. And there wasn’t much else to do in a small town in the middle of nowhere. School was easy for me, and my mom had to work so she couldn’t homeschool me, so they sent me to this gifted school two towns over. They helped me with my applications, and Northwestern offered me a mostly free ride.”

“Must’ve been scary, being sixteen and moving so far from home.”

“I got used to it.” Only now does Louis’s voice tighten, his body stilling where it in Harry’s arms. “My mom kept saying if there was an opportunity for me to make something of myself, I should take it. So… I did.”

“Your mom sounds like an amazing, supportive person.”

“She is. She’s the best.”

Louis stops, then, but Harry can’t tell if he’s pausing or if he’s shutting down the subject. He’s tense, shoulders hunched high. On an instinct, Harry’s hand finds one of Louis’s wrists again, fingers gently, gently stroking the broad side of his palm. Louis holds his breath for a split second, but then exhales, and Harry almost wishes he would turn around, let him catch a glimpse of the complicated expression likely on his face.

“She, um. She’s been through a lot in life.” His voice is soft. Brittle. “She had me young, and my father didn’t stick around long. She got married again when I was three— he’s Tomlinson, not my biological dad— but that fell apart when I was fourteen. And there were five kids at that point.”

Harry hums in sympathy, snuggling in just a little closer, his nose brushing against Louis’s hair.

“But she always found a way, you know? Always got us everything we needed— even with me going to school so far away and deciding I wanted to be a doctor. And then she met Dan the summer before I started here, and remarried last year. A Christmas wedding, while she was five months pregnant with twins, just so I could be there. But I wasn’t there when the babies were born. I left class and FaceTimed my sister. I feel like I’ve missed this whole big part of my family’s life, which just feels completely wrong.”

“Do you get to visit home often?” Harry asks.

“Whenever I can. But it’s not often enough, and they worry about me. It’s hard not to be closer.” Another long pause. “I was in the hospital here, at Northwestern Memorial, in December. My mom had to drop everything and leave my older sisters in charge to come see me.”

“I’m so sorry.” The words, exhaled with a sigh, are a tender breeze on Louis’s neck. “Do you mind my asking what happened?”

“I… am told it was a mental breakdown.” He swallows thickly. “But it didn’t feel like that, exactly. I just couldn’t sleep. So I took too many sleeping pills— but then I tried to drink wine, because wine sometimes puts me to sleep. Zayn called 911, and Niall called my mom, and— and I’ve never been able to tell them why.”

Louis surprises Harry then. Takes back his hand and turns around, the bed creaking with his weight and the change in pressure; his face looms in Harry’s, the shape of their two mirroring bodies like a loose, crooked heart. Harry inhales sharply with the sudden seizure of warmth. Louis’s eyes are so urgent, and so distractingly blue up close.

“I want to tell them,” he says. “And I want to tell my mom, and Caroline, my therapist. I really freaked all of them out with what I did. And I even want to tell you. But it’s like every time I try, every time I think about doing it, my throat just closes up on me and I can’t get the words out.”

“But you _want_ to get them out, and you haven’t given up,” Harry points out. “That’s the most important thing— that you keep trying. You’ll know when you’re ready. And then you’ll tell your mom, and Caroline, and Niall and Zayn.”

“Not you?” Louis’s tone is a little too carefully neutral.

“You can tell me too, of course. But it sounds like the people closest to you in your life should get priority on this one.”

Louis sighs, resting the full weight of his head against the pillow, like he’s suddenly exhausted. For a moment it looks like he wants to say something, but then he doesn’t— his jaw goes slack, his gaze suddenly faraway. Like he’s looking through Harry, past him…

“Louis?” Harry props himself up on his elbow. “Hey, Louis?”

But Louis’s expression remains vague and vacant.

“Louis? Lou?” Harry fights to retain his composure; instinctively he knows that he shouldn’t shake him, but he still cups his hand on Louis’s shoulder with some insistence, his other hand brushing Louis’s bangs out of his eyes. “Hey Louis, can you hear me?”

He waits on tenterhooks, the seconds overblown and agonizing and taut like a live wire. It takes maybe thirty seconds— essentially an eternity— for Louis to blink awake, the blazing focus flickering back to life in his eyes.

“Oh thank god,” Harry says, collapsing onto his back in relief. “You okay, Lou? You had me worried there for a second.”

“Sorry— did I space out?” Louis frowns, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’ve done that to Caroline too. My doctor told me that my anxiety makes me dissociate.”

“Oh, I see.” Harry props himself up by his elbow again, looking down at Louis still curled up in a kind of fetal position. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Just… tired.” Louis sighs. “I guess I’m trying to figure out what I’m so afraid of. Why I can’t seem to say the right thing at the right time.” He says this almost to himself, though his eyes never leave Harry’s.

“I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself,” Harry says. “I mean— not to step out of bounds or anything, but it sounds like you’ve been through something very painful, and you’ve been carrying it around with you for awhile, and you’re doing the best you can. That’s all you can do.”

“I really did freak everyone out,” Louis tells him. Almost like a confession. “It wasn’t fair. Especially to my mom, when I live out here and she worries about me all the time anyway. I… I really hurt her. And Niall, and Zayn. They shouldn’t have had to see me that way.”

“But you didn’t mean to hurt them. They just love you, and were concerned about you. And when you’re ready to talk about it, they’ll be there to listen.”

A flicker of a smile passes across Louis’s face like a ripple in still water, but mostly his brows are furrowed, deep in thought. Wordlessly, Harry lays down on his back once more and wraps his arm around Louis’s shoulders, bringing him into him. Louis rests his cheek on Harry’s collarbone, his breaths deep and a little wistful, fanning across Harry’s chest. It’s somehow the most comfortable position they’ve found themselves in thus far— Harry, staring at the ceiling, with the warm weight of Louis at his side, listening to the faint but steady beat of his heart. The winter sunlight filtering in through the window slants down their faces, the blanket cozy and the apartment quiet, at peace.

“You’re a good listener,” Louis murmurs eventually, drowsily into Harry’s chest.

“Thanks, I try,” Harry says with a chuckle. His eyelids are in danger of fluttering shut as well.

“Today… didn’t go as I expected.”

“In a good way? Bad way?”

“Just a different way.” Louis adjusts the placement of his head on Harry’s shoulder. “I didn’t expect to say so much.”

“I’m glad you felt safe enough to.”

Louis smiles into the fabric of Harry’s shirt; he feels it, feels the way Louis’s shoulders relax, too. Harry affectionately rumples the back of Louis’s hair and lets himself, just for a moment, close his eyes and let the moment wash over him, like warm water and sunshine…

 

.

 

When Harry wakes, it is with the gauzy, half-formed thought that he should not be waking. That something has gone wrong, somewhere beyond the bubble of his sleepy consciousness. But the thought takes some time to coalesce, as his brain slowly catches up with his mind.

He feels hot, is his next thought. And a little cramped. He stretches his legs a bit, and convinces his eyes to creak open. The first thing he sees is a face, soft and still asleep: mussed brown hair, long dark eyelashes contrasted against golden skin, lips pink and parted. Like he has just been kissed, or is just about to be. Harry realizes, belatedly, how close his own face is to this face— how their foreheads must have been pressed together in sleep, open mouths only a breath apart.

Louis. He is with Louis.

Harry’s hand plunges to his pocket, his phone.

2:13pm.

He was supposed to leave by noon.

His panic must be infectious— or maybe it’s just the squirming, the change in position and movement. But Louis begins to stir, a crease forming in the so recently peaceful space between his brows. Harry’s arm— numb and half-asleep itself— is carefully reclaimed from around Louis’s waist, as he makes to leap out of the covers.

“Louis? Louis, wake up, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorryboutwhaa?” Louis mumbles, rubbing his eyes awake.

“Louis, we fell asleep.”

“Oh.” He yawns into the crook of his elbow. “Fuck, I guess we did.”

“This was so massively unprofessional of me, I’m so sorry.” Harry is now awake enough to blush, his otherwise pale cheeks red and blotchy with it, as he lingers in the doorway, torn between staying and running for his shoes. _“God._ I’m usually so careful about time.”

Louis finally opens his eyes fully, his bright, complicated blue stare like a laser beam x-raying Harry’s skin. He sits up in bed, but doesn’t come out, his glasses askew and his hair standing on end.

“It’s okay, um— I’m sorry I fell asleep too. Again.”

The blush in Harry’s cheeks deepens. He doesn’t even have this awkward exchange with one-night-stands, because he is _always_ gone in time, always on top of his escape plans. He runs a distressed hand through his rumpled curls, biting down hard on his lower lip.

“It’s not your fault, at all. I— I’m really sorry. I should go.”

“I forgot to Venmo you, too.” Louis is already reaching out for his phone.

“No— you know what— I really fucked up here, I should, um. I should go, and you don’t have to pay, because I completely lost track of time—”

“I can pay, that’s no big deal,” Louis says, though his cheeks are a similar red.

“No. I would feel wrong doing that when I messed up this badly. I— am so sorry. I’m going to see myself out, then, if that’s alright?”

“Yeah, sure.” Louis’s expression seems troubled, though his voice is flat. “Have a good weekend…”

Harry offers a tight smile, and flees.

 

.

 

He doesn’t tell Liam.

He goes home, lies about stopping for lunch in Evanston, tries and ultimately fails to drill his attention into his LSAT books.

He _can’t_ tell Liam. It all feels too personal, too murky and awful and embarrassing. He’s done something wrong and he knows it. And he can’t soothe his troubled conscience, or make himself forget what happened.

So he puts on his tightest pair of jeans that night, gets drunker than he has any right to (birthday party or not), and spends the rest of the weekend blithely unconscious.

 


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: some discussion of sexual violence.

He feels himself wanting to drift, the beginnings of a dull fog threatening to smother his brain. A vague frustration simmers under the snowy blanket of static— a sense that there are things to say, and a desire to say them— but there is something about the angle of the cold February sunlight slanting through the window that makes everything feel not-quite-real. Pale, anemic warmth seems to refract through Louis’s bones and bathe Caroline Watson’s small office in stark, sober white-gold. The color of some elusive truth, hovering just beyond the edge of his vision.

He buries his face in his hands, and tries to take a deep breath. Time feels expansive and airy, like clean white linen in the breeze, billowing folds suspended in slow motion. He can sense that she is about to call him back three endless seconds before she does.

“Hey, Louis? Are you with me?” Caroline’s face snaps back into focus. “Is the window distracting you? I can close the blinds.”

Louis shakes his head. The room feels like an incubator, sealed away from the bluster outside. He was shivering when he came in, and now his sweater is sticking to him, the nape of his neck damp with sweat. Caroline’s office is located on the second floor of an old converted house— common in Evanston— and the aged wooden infrastructure always poses problems for temperature regulation. The sunlight changes again, blindingly bright against his cheek, and he closes his eyes, lets the white light break like low tide over his eyelids.

“I’m sorry,” he admits. “I… don’t know why I’m like this.”

“Don’t worry,” says Caroline’s voice. “Take your time.”

And he tries. The sunshine seems to flicker on his skin, coming and going with the cloud cover. He remembers what Harry said, about how sometimes it’s easier to speak without eye contact— but that was only true when Harry was all that Louis could feel, their bodies so intimately intertwined that he didn’t need to see Harry to know they were anchored, bound together in a way that kept him from drifting. Here, in Caroline’s office, where she is sitting across from him and waiting and he can already feel himself giving in to the sunlit fog inside his head— here, he may indeed need to wrench himself out of his own gravity, and open his eyes.

He blinks, and there is Caroline once more, as patient as the earth. He realizes he’s never really looked at her, never _seen_ her, in the two months he’s been coming here. Her dark curly hair, textured and thick and falling softly to her shoulders. The faint dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose, which he hadn’t noticed before. And her eyes, which he so often tries to avoid— deep brown bordering on black, big and almond-shaped like a Disney princess, and so utterly kind that she seems to radiate with it, a compassion that’s almost as warm as this office, with its space heater like a beating heart running in the corner.

The sunlight changes once more, like a spotlight engulfing them both— and it occurs to him, apropos of nowhere, that Caroline’s office is just a homely little room with a creaky floor, and he and Caroline are just two people, and nothing has changed, exactly, and yet everything is different.

The words come crawling up his throat. “I want to talk this time. I do.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “What are you thinking about?”

He forces himself to keep staring at Caroline’s face, at the infinite brown of her eyes. Wills himself not to drift again.

“I’ve been thinking about Harry since Saturday.”

“Right, you’d mentioned you wanted to book another session. How did that go?”

Louis’s mouth is suddenly sticky and dry. Caroline, missing nothing, silently passes him a bottle of water.

“I… don’t know. He, um. We were talking, and then we fell asleep. And he got really upset, and left.”

Caroline frowns. “He fell asleep? For how long?”

“Couple of hours. He woke up first.”

“That was deeply unprofessional of him,” she says firmly. “He should have been keeping track of the time.”

“It was an accident.”

“Even so, his whole job was to manage the environment, and make sure the focus was always on you. You’d be within your rights to seek a refund or leave a negative review on his profile.”

Louis blushes, in spite of himself. “I wouldn’t. And he didn’t charge me.”

“That’s good.” Caroline leans back in her chair, surveying him carefully. “How did you feel, when you realized you two had been asleep?”

His throat aches. The moment feels too hazy to articulate— a cocoon of pure sensation, before consciousness, before meaning. Before shame. He was just warm, satiated, in perfect comfort, until the earth shifted and suddenly the warmth was gone and Harry’s face was looming over his with such panic, thunderstorm clouds flashing electricity and shadow in his green eyes. Harry was babbling through his hasty escape, but he, Louis, was still tender with sleep, still trying to process what had so recently changed— still hard inside his boxers, on the cusp of orgasm. Harry left, but his place beside Louis remained warm with his body heat, the scent of him. Like musk and sweetness and just a little bit of sea salt. The apartment was silent, so still that the air seemed to ring with it. And so Louis had rolled over on the bed, pressing his hips into the mattress where Harry had lain and his face into Harry’s pillow, and just that little bit of friction and fragrance was enough to make him come, hopeless and sticky in his underwear, breathing raggedly into the linen until it smelled like nothing again.

“I felt… like I missed him when he was gone,” he lets himself admit, holding Caroline’s gaze.

“Can you elaborate more on that?” she asks.

Louis runs a nervous hand through his hair. “I, um. I don’t know, I guess I felt like we were getting along well, and then we weren’t and he had to go.”

“You have feelings for him. You got... attached.”

It’s a statement more than a question. Nonetheless, he shrugs noncommittally, but Caroline’s eyes are like an x-ray upon him.

“I see. Well, I would strongly advise against seeing Harry again, if that’s what was happening,” she says. “The relationship with a cuddler should be purely platonic, and Harry’s already crossed a boundary. If you decide you want to see a cuddler again, I would ask Nick Grimshaw for another recommendation. It’s a delicate balance, creating those emotional connections and also protecting yourself from potentially painful conflicts of interest.”

He knows she’s right, which only makes it more bittersweet. “I understand.”

“But?” Caroline’s voice is gentle.

Louis just shrugs, shrinking back against the couch and into his sweatshirt. “I don’t know. Just. You’re right.”

“This isn’t a judgment on the feelings you’ve already developed. I only want to make sure that you maintain your emotional safety going forward, is all. For the feelings you already have— this is the place to explore them. Have you talked to Zayn and Niall about Harry yet?”

Louis shakes his head slowly.

“Is there any particular reason for that?”

He’d lain in that bed for what felt like hours, staring at the wall and listening to himself breathe, his own come drying on his skin and permanently ruining that set of boxers. He didn’t know where he found the initiative to stand, to shower and wash his hair and put on fresh underwear, just in time for his roommates to return, fill the silence with their cheerful chatter. He hadn’t even told them he had scheduled the second appointment with Harry. Every time he tried to bring it up in casual conversation, he froze, the words strangled and limp in his lungs. It wasn’t a secret, and yet, like so many things, it had an unutterable quality about it that rendered him speechless.

It’s happening again now. The strangling. The struggle, just before the limpness. He swallows thickly.

“I wasn’t trying _not_ to tell them,” he says at last.

Caroline stares at him then, the infinite brown of her eyes damn near inscrutable. It isn’t a cool stare, but it’s unflinching in a way that sets his nerves aquiver. He drains the entirety of his water bottle, and Caroline automatically hands him another one.

“What do you think would happen, if you told them about Saturday?” she asks at last.

Louis’s eyes widen. “Hmm?”

“If Zayn and Niall were with us in this room right now, and we were all having this conversation together— what do you think would happen?”

“Uh… I don’t know, they’d probably… they’d probably ask me how I felt about him, and what kinds of stuff we talked about.”

“And if you answered them honestly, fully? What do you think would happen?”

Louis considers— bunny rabbit fear, a frozenness and a sniffing of the air, searching for safety. “I don’t… know,” he says.

“Do you think it would be something bad?”

“I… don’t know?”

“If you had to guess?” she presses.

Louis sighs. “Fine. Probably not bad.”

“Okay— then what are you afraid of? What would be the worst case scenario in that conversation?”

He tries to conjure Niall and Zayn’s faces in his mind’s eye. Niall, his blonde brows furrowed, cheeks ruddy as he pondered Louis’s encounter. And Zayn, his expression probably open and a little anxious, big doe eyes searching him for the information he won’t give, for the answer he can’t quite grasp but so earnestly wants to.

“I guess I’m not afraid, as much as I’m… not sure how to say it, or how to explain. Like, it doesn’t actually make any sense, does it, that this guy— this stranger— like, my therapist tells me to bring this random person into my house to pay him to hold me— and he does, and I fall asleep a second freaking time and wake up with a goddamn _boner_ that was probably the stupid, stupid, amateur-mistake reason he had to flee the scene.”

He doesn’t mean to blurt it out so baldly, but the words tumble out of his mouth like overflowing froth, as overwhelming as they are unexpected. He freezes once again— the fear pungent and raw, his heart a beat away from fleeing too.

But Caroline just seems to melt, somehow, her eyes so unbearably warm and gracious that eye contact is hard, for a moment.

“Hey, Louis. Breathe. It’s okay,” she says.

“I’m— I’m fine—” But he’s breathless, choking on his own assurances, and so he concedes her point and drinks some more water until his breathing stabilizes.

“The point of our meetings is to talk about your feelings,” Caroline reminds him, “especially the ones that are ugly and confusing and a little embarrassing, that you think your friends may judge or misunderstand. This is the place for all of that. You’re okay.”

“I shouldn’t need to be here.” His voice cracks like glass, surprising him with its brittleness. “I shouldn’t need a— I have always been at the top of my class. Always been on top of everything. No one’s ever had to worry about me, not even my mom, because I get my work done and I’m _fine._ Everything is always fine.”

“I’m sure your mother worries about you, it’s what moms do.”

“No. Because my mom didn’t have time to worry about me. She had four other little kids to worry about, and I was at the top of my class. I wasn’t supposed to make her come all the way back here and worry about my hospital bills. I wasn’t supposed to be in a hospital in the first place. I was— I was _top of my class.”_

He sets his glasses down and buries his face in his hands, shoulders quaking and shuddering, tone as wet as his hands as he squeezes his eyes shut and rides the froth. “I’m not top of my class anymore,” he confesses. “And I was in the hospital, and now I’m here, and. And I don’t know how to explain it. How to make sense of any of it. Sometimes I drift, and I don’t know why that happens either. I want to explain. And for a second, with Harry, I felt like maybe— maybe I could. It was easier with him. We just— we clicked, you know? I could talk to him, and he would understand. But then I fell asleep, and I haven’t had a wet dream or woken up hard like that since I was like, sixteen, and it was so humiliating, and I didn’t even realize until he’d gone. But he woke up first, so he probably felt it and thought I was ridiculous. He’d told me it happened during sessions sometimes and we would be fine if it happened, but then he was gone, and I couldn’t say anything to anyone.”

The frothing sea of words collapses into just a sea, a torrent. And all he can do is weather it out, wounded animal howls indifferent to volume, shoulder blades like tottering roofs letting the gale in to his stupid swollen heart. He can’t remember the last time he let himself cry like this. He’s never been one to cry, and in truth it’s terrifying, all of his poise and control blown away, scattered in incomprehensible pieces.

But he does, he weathers it out. The sobs subside eventually, his body stilling. The tears pooling in the corners of his mouth taste salty-sweet. He wipes his face, and when his eyes crack open, there is Caroline, untouched by the hurricane, holding a box of tissues out to him.

Louis accepts the box, takes two and dries his face. The afternoon light is somehow lovelier in the aftermath, streaming in soft and golden through the window. He looks to Caroline, and her smile is so searingly compassionate.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it,” she says, “but you just had a real breakthrough today. You told me how you felt, and you let yourself feel that feeling. I hope you can feel proud of yourself for the kind of progress that represents for our time together.”

“But… I still haven’t said anything?” His voice sounds forlorn and faraway even to him.

“You’ve said a lot, actually.” Caroline passes him another water bottle. “Not everything, of course, but— for instance, I better understand the hang-ups you’re having with the therapy relationship. I also know that the time you shared with Harry cut deep, and you aren’t sure how to handle the vulnerability of that intimacy. So now these are things we can work through together. That’s a lot to say in one session, and a lot for us to work with.”

Louis, hit by a second wave, this one of bone-numbing exhaustion, just nods.

“I want to say one more thing, before I let you go a few minutes early here.” She makes sure his eyes drift back up to hers and lock in before she speaks. “I understand your fear around the erection being a reason for Harry’s sudden departure. But I would also say, Harry knew perfectly well he’d crossed a line by falling asleep, and it’s far more likely that he didn’t notice your erection, and was just trying to extricate himself from his mistake as quickly as possible. Either way, though, I don’t want you to blame yourself. As Harry himself told you, those kinds of things do happen, and it’s alright, and you aren’t ridiculous. And I know that eventually you’ll find the words you’re looking for— for me, for your friends, and for your family. Just give it some more time. Okay?”

Louis nods again.

“Thank you for your honesty. Make sure you take care of yourself, Louis. Drink water, eat a good dinner, get a good night’s sleep. I’ll see you Friday.”

She rises to her feet, and offers Louis her hand to help him to his. Such is his state that he accepts bonelessly, leaves her office without saying goodbye, trundles down the creaky stairs, and calls a Lyft instead of walking to the bus stop.

He’s home twenty minutes later— collapsed on his bed with his shoes still on, asleep almost instantly.

  
  


.

  
  


A crying hangover is almost worse than an alcohol-induced one, it turns out. Louis’s eyes are puffy, his head wracked with a dull, persistent ache. He’s quiet over the next two days, his silence soaked through with the mud and debris that the session with Caroline appears to have unearthed. And he knows that Niall and Zayn notice, knows that they worry about him. But this feels like the peak heat of fever, a pit of infection that is his body’s to fight through. He isn’t ready for their reinforcements yet. Almost, but not quite. The words still feel like they’re coated in poison, eroding the pink flesh of his throat. Everything is delicate, and a little precarious.

He tries to believe what Caroline told him. That he will find the right words eventually, given time. He wants to believe it, even if he’s privately doubtful.

Until then, though, he wants to roll up his tongue like an old Persian carpet, wrap it in plastic and tuck it away in the back of his mouth. Put his head down and stay with his work, treading water until he can figure out his next move.

  
  


.

  
  


It snows all day on Thursday, the temperature hovering stubbornly around zero and the swirling winds compounding the bitter cold. It takes Louis longer than usual to make it home from class, shivering in his North Face marshmallow coat as the bus rumbles unevenly through the slush and ice. It’s supposed to keep snowing all evening, too, accumulating to about four inches by morning. He finally gets dropped off at Noyes and Sheridan, wades through the fast-falling drift, and runs up the stairs to his nice, warm apartment, eager to put on some water for tea and swaddle his shivering feet into fuzzy socks.

Niall and Zayn are typically home later on Thursdays— Niall because of phone banking, Zayn because of discussion section— so Louis expects to have the place to himself. But when he walks through the door, it is to the heat cranked all the way up to uncomfortably humid, and to Zayn and Niall lounging inside a massive blanket-and-pillow fort in the living room, already wearing pajamas and sipping hot chocolate from Avengers mugs. They beam when they see Louis, who still looks like a large black igloo in his coat, blue eyes bemused from under the faux-fur of his drawn hood.

“What’s going on here?” he asks.

“Thought we’d treat ourselves today,” Niall explains merrily. “It’s February, Trump is still president, the snow outside is miserable as shit and we shouldn’t be forced to go to class in that mess, and we’re fucking seniors anyway— so Zayner and I elected to give ourselves the day off. Join us! We left you hot chocolate in the microwave.”

“You could’ve clued me in on this plan,” Louis notes, shedding his coat and moving towards the kitchen. “Maybe I would’ve liked blanket fort time too.”

“It was spontaneous,” Zayn says. “And you leave at six every morning, neither of us woke up til ten. So we figured we’d surprise you when you got home.”

“Besides, you’d rather eat these blankets than cut your med school classes,” Niall points out with a smirk.

“Too true,” Louis admits. While the microwave heats up his drink, he fetches his fuzzy socks. “But it was a good idea. The snow _is_ brutal.”

“I will never understand the Midwestern habit of keeping classes and workplaces open in this kind of weather,” Zayn sniffs. “It’s unethical.”

“But you crazy ass Floridians keep school open during hurricanes,” Niall says with a laugh. _“That_ makes no fucking sense.”

“It’s only windy during hurricanes,” Zayn reasons. “Snow is the devil. And I’ve been here three years now, so I’m used to it and I know! I’d take a boring little Cat One over this blizzard shit. Plus I have a job interview tomorrow, so this better clear up quick.”

“Oh right, I forgot,” says Niall. “Who with, again?”

“JP Morgan,” Zayn says, his nose wrinkling with displeasure. “Fucking bougie assholes, but— I need a job. And money. Which is why I did the Econ major instead of just English in the first place. So I better dust off my fucking suit again.”

Louis snickers over his hot chocolate as he finally slides into the mess of linens beside Niall, amused as he always is by Zayn’s perpetual whining about business formal dress. Despite his devastatingly lovely features, or perhaps in a sense because of them, Zayn prefers downplaying his aesthetic, existing almost exclusively in casual wear— t-shirts, sweatshirts, inexpensive jeans, three-year-old department store sneakers. It is the great ironic tragedy of his life that he wound up on a career path that requires such a particular dress code.

“I’m sure it’ll go swimmingly,” Niall says. “At least you’re getting to the interview stage— everywhere I send my resume, I’m not even getting responses most of the time.”

“Where have you been looking?” Zayn asks.

“All over. Any writing or research or political job I can apply to in New York, D.C., and Chicago.” Niall sighs. “It’s a mess. I want to have a job by graduation so that I don’t have to go home to North Carolina for any length of time, or my ma’ll take that as an invitation to harass me into staying there and getting a job in Raleigh or some shit.”

“And this would, of course, be the worst thing in the world,” Louis deadpans.

“It would!” Niall yelps with some indignation. “I am so sick of North Carolina. State itself isn’t so bad, but if I’m within fifty miles of my mother, she’ll smother me to death. Still hasn’t forgiven me for giving up that scholarship to UNC to come here. But I’m like, I need my own life, for God’s sake! New York or bust, baby!”

“God, same,” Zayn says, throwing his head back laughing. “I’m never going back to Florida. I’ll take ten fucking blizzards a year over rednecks and hurricanes and retirees and tourists. J.P. Morgan or Goldman or Visa or one of these other robber baron motherfuckers better hire me before June, or my mother will tie me down in Tallahassee forever.”

Louis smiles as they keep laughing, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He busies himself with his hot chocolate, trying to keep his heart from racing out of control. He’d always known that Zayn and Niall had imminent expiration dates, but the time has slipped by so quickly; February is already ticking by, and June hovers much closer than it seems. Niall and Zayn will graduate, probably get jobs in different cities, and Louis will be left to navigate Chicago alone. He’ll have to find a new place, potentially new roommates. This little place on Noyes won’t be theirs anymore, and they’ll have to settle for meeting up once in a while on holidays, if at all, because this shared college life will end, and adulthood will exact its own demands, and that will become the new normal.

The thought of being apart— of not coming home to fajitas and hot chocolate and blanket forts and noise— sends a reverberating chill far colder than snow through his chest. He rubs his fuzzy-sock-clad feet together, hugging his knees and staring down at the colors, turquoise blue and neon green and highlighter-yellow detailing— a gift from his sister Fizzy on Christmas, which matches the turquoise blue elephant slippers that Daisy had chosen for him. The slippers are in his closet, but he’s been meaning to wear them, he just tends to spend most of his time in socks, and socks make slippers feel perfunctory…

“Lou, you okay?” Zayn asks, tone sharp, puncturing his reverie.

“Hmm? Yeah, of course.” Louis takes another nervous sip from his mug, but he can tell he’s dissociated again, and the mood has shattered, and it’s his fault. He tries to stay very still, hoping they’ll return to whatever they’d been laughing about, but it’s a futile hope and he knows it. The blanket-and-pillow fort suddenly feels like a closed-door furnace.

“I’d just asked you how class went today, twice.” Zayn has an odd, tremulous look on his face, brown eyes wide and distressed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“You’ve been kind of distant all week, Lou,” Niall adds, expression unusually sober. “What’s going on?”

The pause after his question— the right question, the obvious question— seems to dangle on a precipice, like a dissonant chord practically begging to slide back to the safety of consonance. Louis feels the blush in his cheeks, the stage fright of being affixed under the spotlights of his best friends’ eyes. His mouth goes dry, so he tries to buy some time by taking long, slow gulps of hot chocolate until the mug is empty, and he sets it on the coffee table with a thud that sounds vaguely like defeat.

“I’m fine,” he says at last. “I’m sorry, I was— I was distracted now because I realized you two are going to leave soon, and it’s just been a long week besides. The usual stuff, you know how it goes. Everything is… everything is fine.”

His voice sounds passable to his own ears, but neither of them appear convinced. If anything, Zayn just looks sadder. He gets on his knees and crawls closer to Louis, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and bringing him in, Louis’s nose pressed into his collarbone and inhaling the warm, slightly spicy scent of him. It’s a little stunning, how instantly and deeply comforting it is to melt into Zayn’s chest.

“You know you can always tell us anything, right?” The wavering tenderness in his voice almost breaks Louis’s whole heart. “Anything, always.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, fighting to stem the tears already coalescing around his eyelashes. It’s like the afternoon with Caroline loosened a screw in him somewhere; he’s never cried so easily in his life, and it’s as foreign a feeling as it is an alienating one.

But then he hears Niall move, and in a moment, he is curled on top of Louis’s back, his arms around his waist and his face burrowing into his neck, his sniffles wet against Louis’s skin. And this, too, is a contradiction rending him in two— soothing, upsetting, something to thank Niall for and to apologize for, something terrifying but also somehow… needed. Louis takes a shuddering breath, his hand finds Niall’s, and they hold fast, their entwined fists firm on Louis’s hip.

“This was supposed to be a fun time,” Louis manages into Zayn’s skin. “I’m sorry I ruined it.”

“Shut up,” Niall half-growls from the nape of Louis’s neck. “We’ve been hoping to pin you down to talk for days.”

“This blanket fort is our inner sanctum,” Zayn’s voice says somewhere above Louis’s hair. “What happens in the blanket fort stays in the blanket force. Please talk to us. What’s going on with you?”

“And is it okay if we cuddle all over you the whole time?” asks Niall.

Louis’s face cracks into a wide smile, watery but true. “Yeah. I think I’d like that.”

“Did you ever ask Harry for another cuddle sesh?” Niall wonders. “Because you can clearly fire him, we’ve got this.”

In spite of himself, Louis chuckles. “I, um. I did see him, actually. On Saturday.”

“Really? Why didn’t you say?” asks Zayn.

Louis sighs. “I… I guess I felt kind of stupid about it.” He remembers that Wednesday night— restless and unraveled somehow, tossing and turning in bed, finally writing and sending off the reckless text before he could convince himself not to. “Once was weird enough, and then to want to do it again… I don’t know. I couldn’t explain it to myself, so I couldn’t explain it to anyone else.”

“So how did it go?”

Niall squeezes Louis’s hand twice, gentle but firm. Zayn’s hand moves to Louis’s hair, stroking his scalp with sure, thorough fingers. They must feel his hesitation, the helplessness of it, because the silence between Zayn’s question and Louis’s answer feels less like a cliff overlooking the abyss, and more like a rest stop between destinations, a safe place to pause. Louis’s eyes flutter shut, and he tries to let this make him feel brave once more.

“It was good when we were talking,” he says. “It was… easy to talk to him. I couldn’t understand why. It’s like my entire body wants to talk to him, and I could feel myself, like… getting close to it. To the thing I haven’t been able to say yet. Like maybe if he kept me talking, it might tumble out of my mouth along with everything else. But then I was getting sleepy— and I was mad because I didn’t want to do that again— but he felt so good, and… and it was like, it felt like we had time. Like he’d be there when I woke up, and I could tell him. Tell him everything. Except, when I did wake up, it was to him freaking out about staying too long, and before I was even fully awake, he was… gone.”

Both Niall and Zayn’s grips on him tighten in sympathy; Zayn sighs, and Niall’s cheek nuzzles into Louis’s back.

“I’m so sorry,” Zayn murmurs.

“It’s not— no one should be sorry, except probably me. I shouldn’t have even asked him. I don’t know why I did.” Louis swallows with some difficulty, mouth and throat dry and a little achy. “I know that cuddling can sometimes be a lot, but it still felt like he was… I don’t know, different. That he hit me differently because he was him, not because of what we were doing. And… and I woke up with a boner. Which is so embarrassing, but I did, and it might’ve been part of why he freaked out.”

“I don’t think so,” Niall says. “It’s just a boner. I mean, I get ‘em on long car rides just because of the vibrations. Or because of the wind when I’m wearing shorts. Dicks are… well, dicks? He’s got one too, he would know that.”

“He told us they happen often during our first meeting,” Zayn reminds him. “That’s not the issue, per se. It’s more like… like you put this meaning on it yourself. That you felt it wasn’t just a garden variety friction boner, but a more emotional or sexual one.”

Louis frowns slightly, shaking his head against Zayn’s shoulder. “I don’t know. But it felt like it wasn’t nothing when we woke up. He was really freaked out.”

“Did you talk to your therapist about it?” Zayn asks.

“Yeah, Caroline and I talked about it on Tuesday. She said he crossed a line professionally, and I had… gotten _attached.”_ He still doesn’t know what to make of that word, all of the possibilities embedded within it. “So she told me not to see him again.”

“Did you want to? See him again, I mean?”

Louis shrugs, but otherwise declines to answer. Can’t answer, can’t find the words to make this, or himself, make sense. His heart beats hard and loud and hot in his ears.

“I’m just so tired,” is what he ends up saying, gently disentangling his limbs from his friends and hugging his legs to his chest, curling and deflating into his own space. They let him withdraw, but Zayn rests his elbow on the couch cushion behind Louis’s head, still half-encircling him from a distance; and Niall moves so that he’s facing Louis instead of sitting beside him, keeping watch in a sense. His eyes are the bright aquamarine of a clear sea, and somehow, between Niall’s vivid blue and Zayn’s warm, earthy brown, Louis finds himself… grounded. He looks from one to the other, and repeats, “I’m so, so tired. And I want to tell you. I want to be okay again.”

Zayn lays a solemn hand on Louis’s left knee, and Niall on his right. “We’re here,” Niall says, so softly that it’s less a sound than a feeling, a vibration rippling into the very marrow of Louis’s bones.

He takes one more long, shaky breath, eyes squeezed shut against the cliff, the abyss. It’s in front of him now, unavoidable and inevitable, and he can no longer cower along its edges. Niall and Zayn are here, and so is Louis. He wrenches himself open from the seams of his throat, and finally— plunges.

“It was in May. That house party, the one we went to together. It was supposed to be fun— my one night off. It was a rookie mistake, but I drank this punch in the kitchen, and whatever was in it was… strong. I was drunk. And that’s the whole thing. I was drunk and I don’t know what on, but I was dancing, and there was a guy. I think his name was Brad or Brandon or something. I couldn’t even point him out in a line-up now, but we were dancing. And then we were kissing, and we snuck out back behind the house, and he had his hand down my pants. And— and that’s all I can really remember. That’s the whole fucking thing— I don’t _remember._ And I don’t know if it’s because I was drunk and I can’t, or if I don’t want to now.”

He’s breathing hard, shallow and anxious, but it’s coming out— the story, the poison— and he couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to. He’s plunging, halfway through the fall, and there's no place else to go besides the bottom.

“He did something I didn’t want,” he says at last. “And I know I didn’t want it, but I can’t remember what I said, or how hard I fought. I think he came in me from behind, because that’s where it hurt the next day. But I also woke up to come in my boxers, so on some physiological level, I must’ve… enjoyed it. But I remember fear. I don’t think I wanted him to do whatever he’d done. But I couldn’t remember anything else and I still can’t and so— there was nothing to _say._ Nothing to report, or tell anyone. I couldn’t find the words because I couldn’t remember what happened. So I tried to get on with things, tried to just ignore it because I couldn’t even remember what he looked like or what we did, but it was like… the doctors said it’s dissociation, when I space out. And that happened sometimes over the summer.

“But then I got back to school in September, and it was my first year of med school, and everything was just— harder. The coursework, the effort and focus to learn it, the fact that it was our last year together. Everything was harder, and I was anxious all the time. I couldn’t sleep some nights; that’s why I had sleeping pills around. But around that first set of finals, which I was struggling with for the first time in my life— I think I forgot I had taken sleeping pills. They didn’t seem to work on me anyway. So out of desperation I started on a bottle of wine to make me sleep before my exams. And… well, another rookie mistake. I knew on some level that sleeping pills and wine don’t mix well, but I did it anyway. So the hospital tells me I had a mental breakdown, but I couldn’t— I couldn’t explain. I was physically so exhausted from the fall that they wanted me to take medical leave this quarter, go home to Indiana and recover. But I… couldn’t. My mom was so confused and upset, kept saying she had no idea, and I still couldn’t explain. So I insisted I come back here for this quarter. Maybe now the worst was over, you know? Maybe I could get back to my life and keep going with my degree. It’s hard to catch up when you get behind. My mom and I fought about it, but she eventually agreed on the condition that I call everyday and see Caroline twice a week. And… and that’s it. That’s what happened. Or what I think happened.”

The end comes like an abrupt break, like a screech to a halt. But he arrives, and this in itself is a kind of miracle. Carefully, reluctantly, he opens his eyes to face Niall and Zayn— and to his simultaneous surprise and shame, finds that both of them have silent tears streaming down their faces.

“Lou, I’m so sorry,” Niall manages, voice catching. “Fuck, _I_ was the one who wanted to go to that party.”

“I remember, I tried to look for you when Niall and I were leaving,” Zayn says, similarly wracked with emotion. “We texted you… you said you’d taken a Safe Ride home.”

“I don’t remember how I got home,” Louis admits. “But a Safe Ride makes sense.”

 _“Fuck.”_ Niall buries his face in his hands.

“Thank you for telling us,” Zayn says, gripping Louis’s knee like it’s his only tether to the room. “I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry we couldn’t have helped you more. I had no idea.”

“I barely had half an idea myself,” Louis assures him. “And… and it really is better now. The meds I’m on have me on a regular sleep schedule again, and they help the anxious feelings. I’m on top of my schoolwork. The day before this quarter started, I took the exams I missed in December, and I did well. Not my usual standards, but well. And… now I’ve said this out loud once. That’s got to be something.”

“Do you feel better?” asks Zayn.

Louis considers. If he is truly here in the abyss beyond the cliff— it’s not quite an abyss, in the end. It’s a discrete place. There is solid stone underneath him— a sense of a world different from the one before, but with a ground that he can stand on, gather his bearings on. He is just… somewhere else, and most significantly, Niall and Zayn are with him. He isn’t exactly cured, or freed, or magically at peace, but he does feel safer, knowing that his friends could follow him here after all.

“I think so,” he answers.

Niall emerges from inside his hands, blotchy and pink and wet with tears, and proceeds to fall on top of Louis in a tight hug, bringing down a blanket and a couple of pillows from the fort with him. Louis reciprocates in kind, his own arms tight around Niall, and it’s better than the hot chocolate: Niall’s mere presence seems to dissolve some of the stickiness of his throat, makes it easier to breathe. Like his touch is fortifying, and they’re both stronger the longer they hold on. When Niall does finally let go, he presses two sloppy kisses on both of Louis’s cheeks and then lets Zayn take his turn, the two of them hugging for what feels like an entire sunlit day, secure in each other’s arms.

“There’s one thing I have to mention,” Zayn says when they’re all sitting on the floor surrounded by blankets and pillows again. “While you were talking, you said that you came in your underwear, and you said that meant you enjoyed it on some level.”

“Technically,” Louis shrugs.

“No, that’s the thing— you’re completely wrong.” Zayn’s eyes flash something fierce. “Your body reacted to stimuli. That’s it. If you were uncomfortable in that situation, you didn’t enjoy it. You were sexually assaulted, and your body reacted to stimuli, and the two have nothing to do with each other. It’s important to me that you understand that.” He pauses. “Another friend, back when I was in high school— this happened to him too. And he said the same thing, so I researched it, and he was wrong. Just because you came, doesn’t mean you enjoyed it.”

A flicker of a smile tugs at the corner of Louis’s mouth. “Thank you,” he says, and means it.

“You’re welcome,” Zayn says quietly. He squeezes Louis’s hand— but then seems to think better of it, expression suddenly concerned. “You’re _sure_ this is okay? That we’ve been draped all over you?”

Louis shakes his head. “No, no, you’re fine. It’s fine, it’s— it’s funny, because besides my sisters, I’ve never really liked being touched? It was a personal space thing. But with you two, before and after that night, it’s just… fine. I like it, actually. And with Harry, too—” his throat catches, saying his name out loud “—I never freaked out when he touched me because… because it was like I knew on instinct that it was a safe touch, and it felt good instead of scary.” His cheeks turn a soft pink. “Guess Caroline knew what she was doing when she recommended the cuddle thing.”

Zayn and Niall both converge in another group hug, the weight of them heavy, but sweet. Louis manages to wrap his arms around both of them, and breathes them in with relief.

“You’ve always got cuddles from us, Lou,” says Niall. “Love you.”

His smile is small, but the truest it’s been in months. “Love you too.”

  
  


.

  
  


The rest of the evening passes placidly, a blur of tea and chatter and back-to-back _Captain America_ movies, and Burger King delivered to the apartment (courtesy of Niall’s pledges) while it snows on distantly outside. Zayn insists on keeping the heat high, and they put on all the lights at five thirty when the sky gets dark, and Niall inexplicably decides to make an omelette at some point while dancing in his boxers to Ariana Grande. It’s the most fun Louis can remember having in a long time— like the subterranean rift lingering between the three of them since Louis’s hospitalization has finally been bridged, set on its way to healing.

But when he retires to bed that night, tired and almost, almost perfectly happy, it’s Harry he’s still thinking about, turning around and around in his head. It’s a reluctant fixation— it’s always been a reluctant fixation— yet he is an all-consuming thought, an unresolved thread Louis can’t resist tugging on. It was in this bed that they slept; in this spot where Louis woke up and watched him go, and came just to the smell of him.

Bodies do sometimes simply respond to stimuli: Zayn is right about that. But this doesn’t feel like the mechanics of corporeality tonight, wide awake while Zayn snores ten feet away, another erection building between his legs at the mere memory of the last one.

It took him three months to be able to become erect again, after that night. And it still doesn’t happen as often as it used to. Something in him tends to fizzle out more often than not, uninterested in sex or even catharsis. He isn’t sure which sensation is driving him now, with one hand wrapped around his cock and the other covering his mouth; all he feels is the ghost of Harry’s form curled around his own, the soft, even breaths of genuine slumber making the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand erect too.

They just… fit. Even if Harry didn’t experience it the same way, they did, they fit right. And the addictive magnetism of that feeling is stronger than his shame, masturbating in the dark to the image of a man he barely knows, and will probably never get to see again. He’s helpless with embarrassment, with physical relief, with a breathless, inchoate melancholy. Stares at the ceiling with his chest heaving slightly, mind racing too fast to capture thought.

Sleep does whisk him away eventually, but it takes a while.

  
  


.

  
  


Friday dawns crisp and clear, winter sunlight reflecting off the white snowbanks piled up from the previous night. Niall had carefully arranged his schedule not to have class on Fridays this quarter, and Zayn’s interview was scheduled at eight in the morning, so he’s finished before noon and both of them are cheerfully lolling around the apartment when Louis is on his way to meet Caroline. Niall texts the group chat forgoing his usual weekend party plans and suggests going out to dinner, maybe a movie. A heated debate ensues between him and Zayn— Blaze Pizza or Lou Malnati’s?— and Louis knows they’re only texting it out for his benefit, but the gesture does little for the ominous cloud cover gathering over his mood since the morning.

He tucks his phone away, the hood of his coat like the safety of a cave even though the snow has stopped and it’s not particularly cold outside. It’s the kind of day where seeing Caroline— or doing much of anything— feels like an inordinate chore, just fuel for a building headache.

The first thing he does when he enters Caroline’s tiny, creaky office is to ask her to close the blinds this time, block out the sunlight streaming down onto the couch like a spotlight. Caroline acquiesces at once and puts on her lamps instead, casting an odd coziness in the artificial shadow of the room. He can’t tell whether or not he prefers it, but can’t muster the energy to want something else.

“So.” Caroline smiles tentatively. “How are you today, Louis?”

“I told them,” he says.

“Told who what?”

“Niall and Zayn. I told them yesterday. That thing I wanted to tell you, but couldn’t.”

“Oh?” Caroline maintains an admirably neutral expression.

He takes a deep breath, and he tells her too— quickly, dispassionately, like he might a patient history in a clinical rotation. He refuses to remember, just to report the few details he has before his will to continue erodes completely. He can tell the tone shift, as well as the content of his words, takes Caroline by surprise somewhat, but she is as patient and poised as ever. Only her eyes give her away— an infinitely tender brown that unravels him like a spool of tape prone to tangle, stammering as he gets to the end of his confession.

It’s easier, in certain ways, doing this a second time. His throat doesn’t stick so much, and it feels less like falling. In truth, he doesn’t feel quite connected to his body, to the movement of his lips or his hands clutching his knees as he speaks. A swell of complicated sensation threatens to smother his heart as his voice finally trails off.

But her voice is so warm when she lets the silence settle for a moment, then says, “Thank you for telling me, Louis.”

He swallows thickly. “It’s like I said. I told Zayn and Niall yesterday. So, I guess I practiced.”

“How did it feel, telling them? And how did it feel now, telling me?”

Pressure seems to build behind his eyes, cutting off oxygen and choking out the nascent buds of words in his throat. But he can feel her watching him, probing him for the things he doesn’t yet know to say, so he settles for a shrug.

“It’s okay, you can take your time,” she says. “This was a really big step, to say all of this out loud.”

He shrugs again. Caroline’s stare sits heavy on his skin.

“Do you not think it was a big step?” she asks.

“I guess?”

“You guess you do think it was a big step, or you guess you don’t?”

He shifts— squirms— on the couch. “I mean, I do, technically, but it’s also like… okay, so now what?”

“How do you mean?”

His third shrug is animated with a desperate kind of helplessness. “I don’t know, I— I can’t exactly report or prosecute anyone for what happened. I don’t magically remember the details. There’s nothing to _do.”_

“So you’re feeling a kind of anticlimax,” says Caroline.

“Kind of?” Louis crosses his arms tight over his chest. “I just don’t know what’s supposed to come next. I’ve done what I was told. I’m on medication, and I’ve done the cuddling thing, and I’ve told you the big hairy-scary secret, and it doesn’t— it doesn’t _change_ anything.”

“How do you mean?”

“Aren’t I supposed to be, like— healed now, or something? I’ve told the story, but everything is still…”

 _Messy. Complicated. Unresolved._ He doesn’t even have to say it out loud; the air rings with it, is fraught with it.

But Caroline’s tone is kind. “You’ve made a lot of progress, Louis. But healing isn’t a linear process. There’s no singular magic bullet. It’s just time, and work, and patience. Feelings are layered, tangled things.”

“I don’t know how I feel.”

“That’s actually a good start.” Her small smile is like a handwritten invitation tucked into an open envelope. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out together. Let’s start with a few deep breaths. Inhale, count to five, then exhale for five counts. I’ll do it with you.”

He nods, tries to follow her lead with as much grace as he can muster. Inhaled in, and exhales out. A surprising amount of tension deflates from his shoulders as he adjusts his posture to match hers, straight-backed and poised. She leads Louis through five deep breaths before sitting back and letting him collect himself. And when he does, Caroline’s smile is still there, encouragement sparkling in her eyes.

“Just tell me what’s on your mind,” she says. “It can be anything. Don’t force it.”

“Okay.” He continues to sit upright on the couch, concentrating on keeping his shoulders level. “Um… well, I guess I feel awkward, and a little on edge right now, and I’ve felt kind of down all morning, though I don’t know why because Zayn, Niall, and I actually had a good time last night after our big talk. They want to see a movie tonight— they were blowing up our group chat on my way here— but I’m honestly not sure if I feel like hanging out.”

“No?” she prompts.

“I just— I still can’t believe I told them I was probably assaulted. I haven’t consciously used that word before, but that was immediately what they called it.” He pauses. “I still have to tell my mom. I’m going home for spring break in a few weeks.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Nervous. Terrified, actually.” He takes himself through another deep breath. “This is way harder than coming out. That was hard too, but I wasn’t ashamed of that. With this… I’ve already put her through a lot, with the hospitalization. I don’t want to make her cry anymore.”

“She would want to know.” Caroline hesitates, but then says, “I’m a mom myself. My daughter is four, and I love her more than anything in the world. If this ever happened to my child— I would want to know. And if I cried, it would only be because I love my baby so much, and I just want to take care of her.”

Something melts in Louis— at this new grit and fierceness in her tone, at the image of her holding a tiny bouncing girl with her black curls and her brown eyes. That pressure is right behind his eyes again, but it’s not suffocating now. It just aches, bitterly sweet, radiating into his chest.

“I wanted to tell her the morning I woke up. But it’s hard when you don’t remember.” He rubs his eye, his finger coming away with a little moisture. “It’s one thing convincing other people you’re telling the truth; it’s another thing when you’re not sure you’re telling the truth either.”

“If a friend— if Niall or Zayn— came to you with this story, what would you say? Would you believe them?”

“Of course.” It’s the easiest question she’s asked him in two months.

“Then believe yourself. Your instincts wouldn’t lie to you,” Caroline says, with a flash of steel. A beat. “It wasn’t your fault. You know that, don’t you?”

Louis bites down, hard, on his lower lip. “Sure, but I mean, I did drink that stupid punch— I knew better, I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s still not your fault.” On this she is firm. “The only fault here is with the person who violated you when you didn’t, or couldn’t, consent.”

“But— I came.” Somehow it’s essential that she know this too. “It was in my boxers. I came. He made me come.”

“Bodies do that. But it doesn’t mean it was your fault, nor does it negate what happened to you.”

“That’s what Zayn said,” he muses, almost to himself.

“He’s right.”

“I— I couldn’t do it for months afterward.”

“Bodies do that too,” says Caroline. “It happens sometimes, after a trauma.”

Where previously the words suffocated to death, now they overflow independent of will, leaping from his lips like cliff jumpers. “I’ve never had sex,” Louis says. “I’ve gotten, like, hot and heavy with a couple of people, and exchanged handjobs once, but I’ve never— it feels like I’ve never had sex before. But now that what happened, _happened_ — what if it’s ruined now, for the first person I get serious with?”

“It may trigger some unpleasant memories or flashbacks, unfortunately,” Caroline concedes. “But any loving, decent partner would understand and slow things down. And what we do here, with processing your emotions and experiences— hopefully that helps give you the tools to navigate any negative reactions in a safe, healthy way. Sex doesn’t have to be ruined for you.”

“I already came twice to just the thought of Harry, and I don’t know what that means.”

“How did it make you feel?” she asks, expression inscrutable.

“Guilty. But good.” He pauses. “I wanted to tell him, you know. About what happened. He was the first time I wanted to tell anyone. The first time it felt even remotely possible. And it wasn’t because he was cuddling me. It was… just him. I trust him.”

“I told you last time as well that I can’t recommend seeing him again for that reason,” Caroline says carefully. “I don’t mean to put a dampener on things— but you met him in a position of professional trust. It could put you both in a deeply uncomfortable and emotionally harmful situation to pursue that intimacy.”

“I know,” Louis says with a heavy sigh. “I know, I barely know him, and he probably doesn’t reciprocate any of this, and I’m being stupid. But… I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t see _him_ coming.”

“You’re not being stupid,” Caroline says gently. “There was no way to see him coming. But what’s important now are these feelings: your frustrations and fears as you’ve described them today, opening up and telling your story even when you’re unsure. These are important to sit with, and discuss. You’ve already come a long way. Stay with that for a moment. Stay with how your feelings play themselves out.”

He wants to tell her he’s trying. That the past thirty six hours, the past week— the past six months— have wrung him dry with trying, and he’s not sure how much he has left to give. He wants to tell her that he feels like one of the patients he’s observed during surgery, their bodies sliced open and exposed under harsh light, poked and prodded with gauze and sharp objects, put under the kind of stress that takes weeks and months to recover from, half-healed and also half-mangled inside.

But the words don’t come, and this time it’s not a failure. It’s a culmination of exhaustion from all that’s happened, to him and in him and around him. It’s a break from the fog and the drifting, a moment of clarity made all the more stunning because he’d forgotten what that felt like. It’s profound relief— from the burden of secrecy, from the validation of acceptance.

The pressure behind his eyes gives way to water.

It feels like hours before the urgency subsides, and his breathing stabilizes. As though he’s been on this epic sojourn to the edge of the world, even though he’s never moved from this couch. And as he calms, it occurs to him with all the weight and headiness of a revelation, that the universe is indeed still intact. No meltdown, no apocalypse— only the radiator, clanging ineffectually in the corner. And Caroline, holding out a box of tissues like a gift. They are just two people in a room, talking. Listening. When Louis finally looks at her, Caroline’s expression cracks into a smile of pure sunlight. Something delicate and spindly and green blooms a little inside him.

“You’re going to be okay, you know,” she tells him. “It may not feel like it, but you’re making progress. You're healing.”

He nods, already clinging to that notion, however abstract and unbelievable it seems. They talk for a little while longer— amongst other things, Caroline suggests a massage, or perhaps a female cuddler next time— and he doesn’t know whether he’ll take up those suggestions, for financial and for personal reasons. But it does feel good to have options. He leaves her office under a rapidly darkening February sky feeling, not better, exactly, but unblocked. Like the raw sewage in himself that he has been afraid to touch can finally flow. It’s not pretty, but it does need to breathe too.

So he lets it. Lets himself brood on the bus ride home, but tells Niall and Zayn when he walks into the apartment that a movie sounds like fun, and he’s on Team Blaze Pizza. They bundle up against the cold and the bottoms of their boots crunch against the salt on the sidewalks, and Niall has pledge stories and Zayn does his endearingly ugly laugh with the snort, and the winter night is long but the streetlights are bright, and for the first time in a long time, he is present. Here, and now, and almost, almost free.

  
  


.

  
  


The one thing he does do, though: after the movie ends and they come home and Zayn is snoring on the other side of their bedroom, Louis pulls out his phone in the dark and dashes off one brief, reckless text before he can remind himself what a bad idea it is.

_hey, sorry about last time, if i screwed it up. would you maybe want to have coffee with me some time? just to talk?_

He promptly throws his phone to the ground face-down, and leaves it there til morning, when he picks it up with shaking fingers to find a response at 4am, as kind as it is ruthlessly restrained.

_The fault was entirely mine. And I’m sorry, but I don’t think coffee is a good idea. If you need to book another appointment, reach out to Nick again, he’ll be able to help. -H_

The sick, searing punch of it is worse than heartburn. Fingers shaking, Louis deletes the conversation, and the entire contact for good measure, and throws the phone back to the floor with a clatter. He rolls over in bed, and licks the wound for exactly five minutes, then reaches for his Anatomy notes for the exam on Monday.

  
  


.

  
  


Days turn to weeks, which turns into a month already, the apex of March. Towards spring equinox— the celestial point of balance in the northern hemisphere. Louis can’t quite pinpoint the progression, but something settles in him too, as the uneven thawing begins. He studies medicine and just as studiously avoids further pontification on dangerous H-word subjects, pouring all of his spare time into Niall and Zayn instead— beer and pizza with bad movies, helping them prepare for job interviews, laughing together until their stomachs are sore. He even finds a potential project for himself for the summer.

He goes home for spring break in the third week of March and remembers how good home can be. Wanders the little town and his childhood haunts. Snuggles his siblings, from the oldest to the two tiniest, with renewed joy and looseness and lightness of being. He sits his mother down on his second day back, and he finally tells her the truth about the night in May, and she does cry— but he also cries with her, and somehow that makes it easier to bear for them both.

She tells him she loves him, and that she’s sorry; but when he begins to say he’s sorry too, for the worry and the expense, she interrupts him and informs him, all hiccups and quivering hands, that he has nothing to be sorry about. She hugs him so tight to her chest that for a second he thinks she’ll break him. But the second passes, and all she does is make him feel whole.

He closes his eyes, and lets himself… be.

  



	5. five

Spring, already.

Chicago weather being what it is, bleak and blustery with forecasted flurries, Harry can’t quite believe the seasons are changing until daylight savings time hits, and the clocks jump an hour ahead— which is always more disorienting than it should be. This is the topic of conversation at the bar on that Sunday night in March, while Harry pours beer for patrons and Liam munches on free peanuts, brushing the crumbs off his open book: Liam, it transpires, has quite strongly-held opinions on the subject.

“Just on principle, like, the government arbitrarily wrenching an entire precious hour of sleep away from me? That’s a violation of my civil goddamn rights,” Liam insists. 

“Oh relax, they give it back to you in November,” Harry says, fighting to maintain a neutral expression in the face of Liam’s righteous fury.

“It shouldn’t need to be done in the first place! Let time be time! Why mess with a good thing!”

“Well, technically, standardized time is a product of colonialism and capitalism,” Harry remarks. “A nineteenth century conspiracy to streamline railroad schedules for shipping and travel across the British empire. I read an article about it.”

Liam looks vaguely irritated by this historical interjection, but Harry just beams. He loves it when his late-night Internet rabbit holes come in handy.

“And, in case you were wondering,” he continues, “the reason we have daylight savings time in particular is because during World War I, the Germans wanted to conserve energy and hoard extra sunlight— because the curvature of the Earth means the further from the equator you are, the more seasonal changes affect your exposure to the sun— so they started the rule to seize the day, so to speak. And then England and the U.S. tried it too. Though according to the most recent legislation here, states can opt out if they want to. Did you know Arizona doesn’t observe daylight savings?”

“No one should observe it,” Liam insists. “If you want more daylight, just wake up earlier. Any normal circadian rhythm demands consistency, not biannual trauma.”

“This dude from New Zealand in the nineteenth century wanted it to be a two hour change,” Harry adds. “Thank god they didn’t listen to _him,_ huh.”

“It just shouldn’t be a thing! Didn’t John Oliver do a video about this?” Liam pulls out his phone to check, holds it out in Harry’s face. “He _did.”_

“Yeah, years ago— and yet here we are, still saving daylight.” Harry grins, and then tops up Liam’s beer as consolation.

Liam just rolls his eyes and drinks.

“Oh hey, by the way,” he says when he resurfaces, “the forecast is saying it’s probably going to snow late Friday and early Saturday, so we should leave around a little earlier on Friday, just to be safe and beat any weather traffic. I was thinking around four? When are you off from Legal Aid again?”

The question somehow both dangles uncomfortably in the air, and craters into the ground. Harry wrinkles his nose, trying in vain to recall what Liam is referring to. He plays for time by moving down the counter to top up a couple of people’s beers, but when he’s out of patrons to serve, he is forced to face Liam’s stony expression head on. He looks, if possible, even more irritated about this than the accursed time change.

“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten, Haz.”

“Not _forgotten,_ more like… a hung internet waiting for results to load,” Harry says, with his most dimpled cheesy smile. “Maybe we could reset the WiFi?”

“You’re the worst,” Liam informs him. “I told you last week, it’s little Nina’s fifth birthday on Saturday and Roo wants us to be there. As well as your own mother, who went and complained to _my_ mother that she hasn’t seen you since Thanksgiving because you did Christmas with Gemma in Atlanta, and so _I_ had to get an earful about it— which I then passed onto _you_ when I told you to clear your schedule because we’re going to Lisle for the weekend to make our families happy.”

“Ah.” Indeed, the details are coming— belatedly— back to him. “So, about that…”

“Do _not_ tell me you’re pulling out of this!”

“I just got booked for an engagement shoot and a family portrait shoot next Saturday!” Harry cries over Liam’s melodramatic groans. “I’m sorry, it’s work! It’s important!”

 _“This_ is important!” Liam insists, the color high in his cheeks. “I _told_ you, Styles! I gave you enough notice, and you said you’d come with me!”

“But I’m trying to grow my portfolio!” Harry crosses his arms in defiance, but almost at once brandishes them again, half-laughing and half-pleading. “Liam! Limes! Lima Bean! You know I work, like, four jobs!”

“That’s exactly my point: you haven’t had a day off in forever, _I’ve_ barely seen you for the last month even though we live together, and your mom is this close to demanding proof of life, because you live thirty miles away but can’t even be assed to call her every couple of weeks! It’s unhealthy!”

“I’ve been busy!” Harry demurs— and it’s true, he has been, particularly in the past month. He still sees his regular cuddling clients, but mostly he’s been focused on trying to grow his portfolio: experimenting with new photo ideas, more aggressively promoting his Tumblr and Instagram, picking up new gigs. He covered two corporate events just yesterday, and still has to finish editing the proofs tomorrow. Between the freelance photography and cuddling, his jobs at Legal Aid and the bar, and studying for the LSATs in June whenever he has a few minutes to spare, the days are long, yet the weeks whip by fast, sometimes too fast, like snowfall blowing between his fingers, too wet and fleeting to capture with his hands—

But Liam is shaking his head.

“I know what you’re like when you’re busy, and this isn’t just being busy,” he says. “It hasn’t only been work. You’ve also stepped up your, er, extracurricular activities by a lot lately.”

Harry arches a challenging eyebrow. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Only that on top of you going hog-wild with your workload, you haven’t slept a full night at home— or even hung out with me outside of this bar— since your birthday in February, which was six weeks ago,” Liam says without missing a beat. Though, when Harry’s expression shifts into something more bemused and affronted, he is kind enough to soften his tone. “I’m not judging your sex life, Haz. I never have. I’m just saying that… there’s a difference between blowing off some steam and burying yourself in distractions. And as your oldest friend, I get the sense that you might be doing the latter. You don’t go this long without visiting or talking to your mom— or me.”

He sips his beer now, allowing Harry a moment to mull all of this over. In truth, he’s not sure where to start; his chest feels exposed, somehow, even as he leans against the counter behind him, the hard edge cutting into the small of his back.

“I’m not _avoiding_ either of you, if that’s what you mean,” he says eventually. “It’s not that deep. I’m just busy. And sometimes horny. And these two shoots are really good opportunities for me; you know how hard it is to build up a freelancing business. I can see Roo and Nina and Mom any time, but I won’t get these gigs again.”

“I believe you,” Liam says, brown eyes warm even in the hard fluorescence of the bar. “But I also think it’s easy to say that about any weekend. And it’s important to make time for family too. Nina’s having a princess party with ice cream cake, and you know how much she loves your Flynn Rider impression.”

“Come on, that’s not fair, you can’t emotionally blackmail me with a cute preschooler,” Harry says lightly, though his grin is vaguely wistful.

“Hey, I owe it to the cute preschooler to use everything in my arsenal here.” But Liam’s sigh is wistful too. “I mean, I guess I can make your excuses for you at the party… but please do call your mom, at least. _I’ve_ talked to her more in the last couple of weeks than you have.”

“I will. It’s just been, you know. Busy.” Harry runs a hand through his messy curls, tousling them so that the hair sweeps against the back of his neck. “I do like it that way, though. Being busy. It’s not a cry for help, it’s actually my preferred state of existence.”

“You’re not busy, you’re restless,” Liam says. The word sounds ominous on Liam’s tongue, like a warning— but Harry merely chuckles.

“I’m having fun, Lima Bean. Meeting people. You should try it some time; you’re always cooped up in the apartment unless I drag you out here for free drinks.”

“I have homework,” Liam points out wryly. “And anyway, I get tired of people after a long day. It’s nice to have some time alone in my own space. Letting myself be dragged here to see you is the ultimate honor I can bestow.”

“I appreciate it, but I’ve never understood that about you.” Harry absently bounces on the balls of his feet as he says so. “There’s nothing to _do_ in the apartment, or even in Lisle. Everything is out here, in the city, with people.”

“Everyone needs a home base, Harry.” Liam drains the last of the beer, pushes the empty mug towards him. “Even you. You’ve got to slow down a little, man. Learn to stay still for a minute. Get some more sleep.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Harry declares.

“Restless,” Liam retorts. It’s unclear how much of the weight in his voice is accusation, or just deadpan banter; but Harry takes it in stride, cleaning the glass with a fresh dishrag while Liam puts on his coat to leave.

“See you tomorrow, Lima Bean!” he sing-songs, blowing Liam a kiss on his way out.

 

.

 

It turns out, once Liam’s distracting presence has vacated the premises, that there is a very good-looking patron hanging out at the edge of the bar— young, willowy, with light brown skin and windswept dark hair and a smile like summer. He’s drinking a gin and tonic, and his eyes don’t leave Harry’s general vicinity as the night wears on.

As a bartender, Harry can always tell when he’s being checked out, and he always tries on the weight of someone’s gaze like a new pair of jeans, evaluates the fit. And in this case, the guy seems both cute and eager, and his eyes are the greenish-blue of a vigorous, playful sea. Harry’s had a thing for blue eyes of late. He lets a grin tug at the corner of his mouth, and the guy beams in response, and Harry lets himself linger on that side of the bar, voice slowed down to his huskiest flirting drawl as he brings fresh drinks and peppers the guy with leading questions.

After a few minutes of back and forth, Harry discovers that the guy’s name is Jonas, he was born to missionaries in Venezuela, he’s getting a master’s degree in public health, and he recently rescued a two-month-old kitten named Noodles, of whom he has at least a hundred pictures on his phone.

Cute, eager, _and_ happy to chatter away without asking too many personal questions. Harry decides to go ahead and like him.

 

.

 

After Harry closes the bar and splits a Lyft with Jonas, Jonas buried in his neck the entire ride, all teeth and slobber and obscene little moans against his skin like he’s something to consume all at once—

After frightening Jonas’s poor kitten with their rankly gratuitous enthusiasm in bed, as Harry discovers Jonas’s praise kink and thoroughly exploits it for three shattering orgasms each—

After Jonas falls asleep cuddled up against Harry’s side so tightly that it takes several careful minutes before Harry can successfully extricate himself and flee at 4am, the streets a little eerie as he wanders back to his own place in the nascent pre-dawn dark—

Monday. A new day, and the start of a new week. Harry showers, changes clothes, fries himself two eggs and eats them on the couch, black work pants and bare feet dangling off the arm close to the space heater— and then he’s out the door by seven thirty, on his way to Legal Aid. Liam is still asleep when Harry locks the door behind him.

He isn’t lonely, or tired, or _restless._ He’s onto the next thing, the next adventure. He leaves the claustrophobic silence of the apartment and rejoins the now bustling city, at one with the noise and the movement and the showy headlines blaring from his phone, evidence of the world’s vastness and intimacy and breathtaking pace. He reads his Twitter feed on the train ride to Washington-Wabash, absorbed in all of the stories unfolding before him, and wondering which ones are still coalescing just beyond the present.

He isn’t Liam, introspective and touchy-feely and tethered to just one place he calls home. He is too fidgety for all of that. More tactile than cerebral, more kinesthetic than passive, more prone to bottling up and exploding than processing sensory information in any systematic way. And where Liam is careful with people— letting them in one by one, his friendships sometimes as long-term and intimate as his romances— Harry loves broadly. Easily. Acquaintances and spontaneous meetups; witty banter in crowded bars; intense but brief encounters like fingerprints on window glass, lingering until they don’t anymore, until he wants to wipe everything clean and start fresh.

He is the kind of person who only knows how to be at home with himself in the most transient way— like a traveler with a hotel room, only appreciating the view in the time it takes to stash the essentials and run off to some other, more interesting place. Home isn’t his and Liam’s shared apartment, or his mother’s house in Lisle, but a sense of ease in a purposeful chaos of his own creation, always moving, always forward-looking. He’s in no mood at all to dwell on this past month (or the pit of frozen unease that has quietly taken root behind his stomach).

What he’s in the mood to do is dive headfirst into his various jobs and the myriad demands of that work— and resurface only in the company of disposable gentlemen strangers, who will similarly insulate his attention into the present, the moment, the now. Exactly the way he likes it.

 

.

 

The early forecast for Friday ultimately bears out: the snow will touch down in the Chicagoland area by seven o’clock, so Liam heads out for Union Station at four to catch an express train to the suburbs and arrive safely home before the weather gets bad. Harry is still at Legal Aid when he receives Liam’s text; he wishes him well, then texts his Tinder date to confirm drinks at six.

By five, however, the guy texts back to cancel, and makes no mention of alternative plans. It’s disappointing, though mostly because this guy is a second year at DePaul Law and Harry had been hoping to grub application tips over their tequila shots. Otherwise, it suits Harry fine: as he catches the train back to the apartment, he messages another guy he’s been chatting with on Tinder asking if _he’s_ available instead, and names a nearby bar in Lakeview. In the interim, he changes into sweatpants, puts _Friends_ on for background sound, and takes out his LSAT books to study. Admittedly, as the test date approaches, Harry finds himself getting antsy; his previous score in October was a 159, and he needs at least a 166 to be competitive for the schools on his list.

He’s going through an especially finicky set of practice questions when, at around nine o’clock, his phone starts blaring his “Mama Mia” ringtone and nearly scares him half to death. For one wild moment Harry thinks Liam might be in some kind of trouble, or maybe he himself is in trouble because he didn’t go to Lisle to see his mother— but when he goes to answer, he finds that it’s Nick Grimshaw. Mystified, Harry accepts the call.

“Grimmy? You dead or dying in a ditch somewhere?” he asks, not entirely joking.

“Of course not!” Nick’s voice sounds thick, like he’s been crying, though of course he still manages to sniff indignantly at the very thought of a threat to his mortality. “No, I, um— can I come over? I’m closer to Lakeview than West Loop.”

Harry glances around his person— his books and papers spread out on the couch, half a slice of the frozen pizza he’d warmed for dinner, a pair of socks and his slippers strewn on the ground. “Uh, yeah, sure. Liam’s not here, so we’ll have the place to ourselves. What’s going on?”

“I’m fine, I just want sex,” Nick manages gruffly. He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears again. “See you in twenty.” And then he hangs up before Harry can ask him any more questions.

Harry frowns at the silent phone in his hand for a moment, even more confused at the end of the call than he was when he got it. Admittedly, it’s nice to think that Nick is coming here to have sex: part of the sexual nomadism that has so offended Liam’s sensibilities has been due to Nick getting serious with Dr. Will and not sleeping around anymore, including with him. And, unfortunately, Harry’s subsequent quest for new booty calls has not yielded promising results— all of them too needy, or clingy, or simply mediocre. Nick was always reliable, the perfect balance between familiarity and detached spontaneity that has proven near impossible to replicate, and Harry wouldn’t be sorry to resume their previous arrangement.

But if Nick’s social media profiles are any indication, things have been going well for him and Will. They’ve seemed… happy. When he isn’t posting pictures of himself and Will on dates, Nick tags him in memes and posts smiling selfies on Instagram with captions quoting song lyrics about falling in love. Will has liked every single one of them. Harry has never seen anything like it from Nick, and he’s been glad for them, truly. Nick had texted once about wanting to get drinks together so that Harry could meet him, but he’d chosen to keep his distance, letting them enjoy their honeymoon bubble before introducing himself as Nick’s ex-hookup. He can’t imagine what’s changed so drastically to make tonight’s phone call possible.

He clears away his things from the living room, and grabs a bottle of wine for good measure, in case Nick needs something to take the edge off. By the time he’s sorted out the kitchen and texted his Tinder guy to cancel, Nick is practically banging down his door. Disconcerted, Harry goes to open it— and finds a veritable wreck.

“Hey,” Nick says, even the single word dripping from his lips slurred and messy. He appears to have somehow gotten drunker between calling and arriving here. Harry lets him in, and at once, Nick half pulls Harry in, half falls on top of him in a sloppy collision of mouth and tongue and the almost tangible taste of whiskey. They stumble back, until Harry is trapped up against the wall in his soft t-shirt and sweatpants, and Nick presses in on top of him, still wearing his coat. It’s not comfortable, or even pleasant, but Nick is kissing him like he’s oxygen, and so he lets it go on until Nick seems relatively calmer, more amenable to being pushed away so that Harry can get a better look at him.

“What’s going on with you?” Harry asks a second time, gently.

Nick takes a shaky, shuddering breath. “Do we have to talk about it?” he pleads, throwing his coat to the floor and fumbling with the zip of his jeans. “Can’t we just—?”

“Is this you using me to cheat on your boyfriend, Grimmy?”

Nick’s face crumples. “He’s not my boyfriend anymore.”

“Okay. Okay, I understand.” Harry takes Nick’s hands off his pants, leads him fully clothed to his bedroom. “Come on, let’s cuddle instead.”

Nick nods mutely, and lets Harry guide him into bed, curling into an automatic fetal position under the covers as Harry slips in beside him, forming a big spoon like a protective shell around the raw pink underside of Nick. He’s shivering, or perhaps shaking, under Harry’s touch. Harry’s sigh is heavy, his exhale like salt and sea air in the nape of Nick’s neck, sending the whisper-thin hair at the bottom of his coif aflutter. Harry nuzzles his nose into the spot where his neck meets his shoulder, and keeps breathing slow and steady into Nick’s skin until his body stills, drained of his manic urgency.

When he’s been quiet long enough, Harry articulates the unspoken question. “What happened with Will tonight?”

Nick doesn’t answer right away. He pulls Harry’s arm over his waist, and intertwines their hands together, his grip tight but brittle. Finally, he says, “We had a fight.”

“What about?”

“He wanted to move in together. Get a new place, just the two of us.” Nick pauses. “He said he wanted to commit for real, and he doesn’t think I’m ready.”

“Well, are you?”

“No,” he admits. “I’ve never done commitment before. The closest I’ve come in the last couple of years is with my Door Dash app and you.”

“You really know how to make a girl feel special, huh,” Harry chuckles.

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t, actually.” Harry lets go of Nick’s hand, touches his arm to let him know to turn around so that they’re facing each other, Nick’s dark, currently watery eyes boring into Harry’s green ones. “You and me, we’re friends for real. That’s a commitment, and you’ve been doing it for years, so clearly you’re capable. What makes Dr. Will any different?”

“That’s the thing— I don’t know.” Harry has never seen Nick look like this— vulnerable, almost undone. Like the usual strings behind his face that keep him taut are unraveling and shifting a different shape, a warped new texture of him. “I’ve asked myself this question, why you and not him. And I don’t know. I don’t know why the stakes seem so much higher with him than they are with you.”

“Maybe it’s because we were friends before we started sleeping together,” Harry muses. “It’s like— how did that line go? ‘Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.’”

Nick’s mouth twitches with a flicker of a smile. He looks like he wants to say something, but then he doesn’t, winding his arm up Harry’s shoulder and idly twisting his curls around his fingers.

“You’re a good friend,” he says. And he means it, but there remains that slurred, sloppy after-effect, reminding Harry how much he’s had to drink, even if the drunkenness is coming out languid and sweet now instead of carnivorously needy. His hand stills on Harry’s scalp, and he pulls Harry in for a kiss, but Harry dodges him at the last moment, letting his lips collide with his neck, the sharp knob of his Adam’s apple. Nick pulls back, confused and a little irritated.

“I’m a good friend,” Harry reminds him. “So I’m not going to let you cheat on your boyfriend tonight.”

“I told you, he’s not—”

“He is,” Harry cuts him off. “Will is the one you’re with, even if you’re fighting right now. And I’m guessing— educated guess, because we’re friends— that you really do want to move in with him, but it scares the shit out of you because you’ve convinced yourself you’re not the kind of guy who can commit, so you let yourself pick a fight with him, and let him get mad and kick you out, and then you came here to me looking for absolution because you don’t think you can fuck the person you really want to be fucking tonight. Am I close?”

Nick looks genuinely, and quite unwillingly, both shocked and impressed.

“H-How did you—?”

“I know you,” Harry reminds him. “I remember _alllll_ of your big dumb crushes and your almosts and your regrets, Nicholas. And I don’t want Dr. Will to be an almost or a regret. You have a good thing here. You’ve got to protect it.”

“But he’s mad at me. He hates me.” He sounds as distressed as he does strangely… hopeful. Like he’s talking himself into it, into a way out of these difficult straits and into something more familiar. But Harry shakes his head.

“He may be mad at you, but he doesn’t hate you. Being mad at each other isn’t the end of the world, you know. You could just… sleep on it— sleep off the hangover, specifically— apologize, and make up. Easy peasy.”

Nick frowns. “That doesn’t seem easy peasy.”

“But it’s easier than you think,” Harry says. “And it’s what mature adults do in mature adult relationships. I think you’re ready to kick your training wheels and give that a try.”

Again, that strikingly slack uncertainty, down to the very structure of his skin. Like his features are propped up on straws instead of bone. “I don’t know.”

“Try. That’s all anyone can do. Tell him how you feel, and then he’ll tell you how he feels, and it’ll all make so much more sense.”

Nick mulls this over in earnest— but then wrinkles his nose, mingled humor and confusion wrinkling between his brows. “No offense, but when did you become a relationship counselor all of a sudden, Haz?”

“Hey, I can be empathetic and wise sometimes!” Harry says.

“I know, it’s just—” Nick considers. “I’ve always thought of us as… the same. You know? Like, the way we were in school. Getting drunk, and screwing around, and having fun, even when we get dumped. We never got all up in our feelings, or… or fell in love, or whatever.”

“You’ve fallen in love?”

The surprise in Harry’s voice is rawer than either of them expected. The question dangles between them, something transgressed, but also something liberated. Like being suspended mid-jump, and deciding whether to fight the fall, reach for errant branches to attempt escape, or just trust gravity all the way down.

Nick can’t seem to decide which, looking to Harry with pure fear dilating his pupils, pure limb-locked freefall. He puts his hand on Nick’s shoulder, grip firm as Nick quakes. His eyes are so brown, watching Harry so intently. Harry refuses to be the one to break their mutual gaze. It feels important, somehow, to stay in place, unblinking. Waiting.

At last, Nick exhales, his face crumpling like a paper lantern underfoot.

“Maybe I did,” he admits.

And just like that, they’re not quite the same anymore. No longer made of exactly the same _stuff._ Because here is Nick, falling. Deciding in front of Harry’s eyes to take his chance. And Harry is still safely perched in his nest of slippery youth and irreverence and cheerful self-absorption, somehow more afraid than Nick.

“You’ve got to hold onto that,” says Harry, his voice thick. “If that’s true— go to him.”

“I will.” Nick bites his lip. “I swear, I will, I just… could I stay the night tonight? Not for sex, anymore, but to, um… I don’t know, not be alone with this massive fucking realization I’ve had?”

Harry’s smile is wry, doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course. You’re always a welcome addition to my bed, Nicholas, even if you’re not here to put out.”

The tension in Nick’s face dissolves with that, giving way to his usual mischievous cackle. “Oh my _god,_ Harry. I’ve fucking missed you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asks, lightly, though his grin noticeably tightens.

“Nothing really, it’s just been a while since we’ve seen each other,” says Nick. “I’ve been with Will, and you’ve been doing whatever-the-fuck you’re always doing.”

“I’ve been working, is what I’ve been doing!” A squawk of defensiveness sends Harry’s voice up an octave.

“Alright, alright!” Nick raises two little T-rex arms up in mock retreat. “I didn’t mean anything by it!”

“No, no, I know,” Harry deflates at once. “Sorry. It’s just, Liam was on about it too this week, telling me I’m… I don’t know. It’s stupid, forget it.”

“Oh no you don’t— I just came in and exposed all these ugly goblin feelings all over you, so you’re going to take my mind off it and reciprocate.” Nick scoots in closer, batting his still-wet eyelashes in Harry’s face. “Now spill this tea. What’s going on with Liam?”

“Nothing! It’s not even tea, it’s lukewarm water.”

“Tell me,” Nick insists.

“It’s honestly nothing,” Harry repeats— but Nick won’t budge, so he sighs. “Okay. Fine. So, Liam’s in Lisle this weekend because it’s his niece’s fifth birthday, and he wanted to go to the party and see his family. And he told me to come too, because I haven’t been back since Thanksgiving, and I told him I have work to do. Which I _do—_ specifically, an engagement shoot and a family portrait shoot which are both scheduled for tomorrow. So he went off on me about how I work too much, and I’m never home in Lisle or in our apartment enough, apparently, so this means I can’t stay still and I’m restless.”

Nick blinks, bemused. “Oh… that’s it?”

 _“Yes,_ which is what I tried to tell you. Lukewarm water!”

“No, not like that, like— like that’s all Liam said that upset you?”

“I’m not upset,” Harry says.

“You are, you’re all pressed and defensive. I’m just not sure why. I mean… it _is_ how you are. You’re a restless extrovert that likes to keep busy. Is that… news to you?”

“Well, not when you put it like _that,”_ Harry says, rolling his eyes. “Busy, extroverted— yeah, fine. But he said it like it was a bad thing. Like I’m avoiding him or something.”

Nick’s pupils are already blown with whatever he’s drunk on, but they sparkle with curiosity. “Well… are you?”

“No, obviously! We hang out in the bar all the time!”

“You work at that bar,” Nick corrects. “He visits you at your place of work while you’re on the clock.”

“You know how the bar is, it’s not like an office job, it’s easy to chat, and I give him free drinks—”

“But it’s your place of work. He’s meeting you in your comfort zone, a place where you work.”

Harry forces himself to take a deep breath. “We don’t have to be attached at the hip, Nick. I’ve been busy, and it’s easier to meet at the bar.”

“Yeah— except, I also remember all of _your_ habits and tricks from our years together, Harold,” says Nick. “I know how you get when you’re avoiding something. You throw yourself into everything that’s not Liam because you know the moment you sit down to have an honest conversation with him, whatever it is you don’t want to talk about is going to come spilling out, and you’re trying to avoid the reckoning.”

Harry opens his mouth to protest, but Nick cuts him off. “Listen. Remember, your sophomore year, when you were on the verge of flunking that stats class in the winter? You were always over at my place trying to get me to have sex with you, and then you decided to take up foosball against yourself at the student center, which you would do all damn night when your hands weren’t already down my pants, and I couldn’t figure out why— until I walked you home that time, and Liam was sitting on his bed reading a book, and he took one look at you and you bolted into his lap like a damn house cat, and you told him point blank that you were failing stats. And he helped you email your professor and formally withdraw from the class.”

Nick’s gaze is pointed, but Harry is sincerely nonplussed, remembering. It’s been a long time since he gave even a passing thought to that stupid stats class, which started impossible and only became more so as the semester wore on. He remembers he eventually stopped going, because it didn’t help anyway, and he did play a lot of foosball, because the student center was always open so late, and the table was down in the basement where it was quiet, and he could spend hours improving his ambidexterity— something far more within his field of talent than statistics. Liam had thought he was seeing someone, for all the time he spent wandering outside their shared dorm room, declining to give all but the vaguest alibis.

He can’t quite remember what it was that made him tell Liam in the end, though. What finally broke the manic fog, and brought Liam back into the fold— or how Liam got cast out of the fold in the first place. His memory can’t even produce a sensation of hiding something from Liam. He was just… failing statistics. He never feels like he’s hiding anything from Liam, because Liam knows all the things about him that he doesn’t tell anyone. Liam is the one person in the world with whom Harry is the most himself.

“What’s your point, Nick?” he asks with a long sigh.

“Only that whenever you’ve been in any trouble— with stats, with me when we first started hooking up, with that girl you were seeing who asked you if you wanted to marry her— you hide it from Liam until you’re ready to face it,” Nick says gently. “Liam’s your mirror. And he’s smart enough to know when you’re avoiding him, and also smart enough not to push you until you come to him yourself.” Then adds, playful but also a little smug: “See, I can be smart and insightful too.”

In spite of himself, Harry chuckles. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Whatever it is that’s eating you, though— you can tell me, if you want,” says Nick. “But no pressure.”

“It’s nothing,” Harry says— not for the first time tonight, but now with doubt like a hairline fracture cutting through the innocuous phrase. “It’s… it’s really not anything, it’s… it’s me trying to cut back on the cuddling stuff to focus on my photography. Which is working well, because I have these two great gigs tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you want to cuddle anymore?” Nick asks.

Harry shrugs. “Photography makes more money long-term. And I want to get in on graphic design, too. Maybe coding. It’s remote work I can keep doing in law school too, if I get in somewhere good this cycle.”

“Sounds interesting. I’m glad for you.” Nick’s expression relaxes into a sweet, sleepy smile, as he stretches his arms out and yawns. “Y’know, I think the lack of cuddles might be getting to you too, though. Get in here, let me spoon you.”

Harry’s first instinct is to decline, to stay on this side of the bed and let Nick sleep off his hangover and his confessions and this strange intimacy tonight, talking about these things they never talk about. But Nick doesn’t exactly give him a choice in the matter. He scoots in so close that their noses brush, and stays there, breathing in Harry’s face until he gives in and turns around, lays there in a loose fetal position as Nick curls around him like a sweaty, whiskey-scented body pillow. He’s a bit stiff at first, with so much Nick pressed half on top of him— but as their breathing mutually relaxes into a slow, pre-sleep rhythm, Harry’s body remembers, belatedly, that this kind of easy contact feels good. He stares out into space, the view from the window of another building and the infinite cloudy sky beyond it, and tries not to interrogate the unsettled, whining hum vibrating somewhere in the back of his chest.

He wants to let his exhaustion— from today, from the last month— carry him off safely to a dreamless sleep, but that hum is intertwining with his breath, the ticking clock of his heart, and suddenly he knows what Liam means now about staying still. About being in his own bed, with someone who _knows_ him, letting his mind wander in the quiet vulnerability of nighttime.

He isn’t good at this. Not on the other side of the cuddle relation. Not now, or maybe ever, if he lets himself think back that far. He can feel himself squirming in Nick’s arms. But Nick starts stroking his forearms with his sturdy nurse’s fingers, and it feels as good as it does inhibiting. Trapping him in his care.

“I have to be at the Botanical Gardens just before dawn for the shoot,” he whisper-tells Nick.

“Mhmm,” Nick mumbles.

Within minutes, he’s snoring. But for Harry, it takes a while.

 

.

 

Both photoshoots go relatively smoothly, even the early one that Harry just barely makes on time, running with his camera bag and yawning into his coffee as pale new daylight starts breaking. He’s done with work by five in the afternoon, his original drinks date reinstated for the evening. He doesn’t have a Flynn Rider costume on hand, but he does hang out at a Peet’s in South Loop, records a birthday Snapchat video for Nina with the cat filter on, and then FaceTimes his mom from the party. She’s so glad to see him, and so reluctant to lecture him in front of the five-year-olds, that they exchange several sunny pleasantries until Nina snatches the phone and chatters about the party for three full minutes without taking a breath. Liam, too, makes a quick cameo to say hello, all crinkly eyes and easy laughs. It takes Harry by surprise, how this brief glance makes him miss Liam so much all at once.

He hangs up the call after an hour and runs off to meet his date, who is perfectly nice and does indeed spend some time answering Harry’s law school questions. They then proceed to have fantastic sex in the guy’s apartment, which feels something like catharsis, like the very last of some glorious and fleeting thing— the last sip of expensive champagne, the last cigarette before finally quitting for good. He leaves his date asleep at three in the morning, returns to his apartment, and cleans it from top to bottom to surprise Liam, who drives back from Lisle in the evening.

“Wow, did you hire a service or something?” Liam asks when he walks in, brows furrowed in mild confusion.

“Nah,” Harry says, grinning.

“Then did you hit your head somewhere? Murder someone and leave me a body to bury?”

“Nope.” He takes great pleasure in smacking his lips— pop!— on the second syllable. “Just… you know, sorry that work got in the way.”

“It’s fine, it wasn’t that big a deal,” Liam says, though he looks mollified all the same.

“Good, then you can do the next two scrubdowns. In the meantime, you want to have an _X-Men_ marathon tonight? I brought that almost-good wine from Whole Foods for the occasion.”

Liam’s beaming smile puts this morning’s vivid sunrise to shame.

 

.

 

Somewhere between _X2_ and _The Last Stand,_ between bleariness and full-on intoxication, Harry turns to Liam. “Hey. Sorry again for neglecting you.”

Liam successfully grabs at the remote two feet away to pause the movie, mid-awkward Famke Janssen expression.

“I apparently have this pattern, according to Nick, where I avoid my problems by avoiding you, because you… are my mirror,” Harry informs him.

“I see.”

“You’re always telling me to be serious about committing to people. And then Nick, like… went and _did.”_ Harry’s been thinking about this all day while cleaning, the task unfortunately mechanical enough that his thoughts continued to wander far outside the tight pasture he normally lets them graze in. “He got into a relationship with a cute doctor, and they were happy, and I felt like I lost my friend. I definitely lost my favorite hook-up. Which made me… restless.”

Liam’s Bambi eyes are overflowing with empathy. “I get that.”

“And then there was this other situation.”

“Okay.”

He takes a long, steadying breath. Braces himself.

“So, you remember I had that cuddle appointment with Louis? Tomlinson?”

“Yes.”

“I, um. I screwed up.”

To his credit, Liam actively restrains his face from revealing judgment. “What happened?”

And that’s the thing— the thing that’s so hard to put into words. This pit of frozen unease. This hum behind his heart. This boundary that’s been crossed, even though it shouldn’t matter because nothing catastrophic actually happened. He bites down on his lip, then continues, with bare facts and an even tone of voice.

“We had our second session, and… I fell asleep. I let myself fall asleep. I woke up two hours later still holding him. And… we were both hard.” Harry’s cheeks burn with the memory. “I don’t know if he noticed it about me. I don’t think he did. I mean, I bolted as fast as I could. And I didn’t charge him for the session. Then he texted me a day or two later asking me if I wanted to have coffee, if he’d done something wrong. I said he didn’t, but declined coffee. We haven’t had any more contact since.”

Liam is silent for a moment that might as well be an eternal chasm. But, the moment passes, and Liam’s inscrutable expression clears, and he just says, “Okay.”

“Oh… kay?” Harry can’t quite believe his ears.

“Yeah.” A ghost of a smile twitches on Liam’s mouth. “Haz… you made a mistake, but you tried to fix it the best you could. You did what I would’ve done. So what’s really going on here?”

Liam has an inimitable way of shrinking monsters down to shrubbery while simultaneously making the ground shake. Harry bites down on his lip, eyes impassive while his heart threatens to race out of his rib cage, trying to figure out how to explain about Louis Tomlinson. About how that first session contained a flicker of the inexplicable which he tried to ignore, to his own peril. About how the second one still fills him with an unease that tastes the way gasoline smells, that is mingled with curiosity and…

“I’ve done this cuddle thing for a few years now, so I know how it goes,” Harry says. “And I’ve been hooking up even longer than that. I’m good at casual intimacy. I’m not, like, a sociopath or anything, but I don’t get invested the way other people do. I know how to get involved and still be detached.”

“But?” Liam prompts, eyes inscrutable again.

Harry sighs. “But… I don’t know. Maybe I’m afraid that I fell asleep with him because I might have… gotten attached.”

“What does that mean to you, exactly?” Liam’s voice is petal soft. “What do you mean by, you got ‘attached’?”

It’s an honest question. And a good one. But he doesn’t know how to explain about Louis Tomlinson. How his sleeping visage was cradled in the crook of Harry’s shoulder with such naked trust that Harry couldn’t do anything but stare at him, studying his face and individual features for so long that it felt like saying a word aloud too many times; like he got so lost in the trees he could no longer find the forest. He’d been so absorbed in Louis that it took a minute to realize his fingers had absently begun to draw soft, awkward circles in Louis’s hair, like some clumsy, tactile lullaby he hadn’t even realized his hands were trying to sing.

And then the second time, knowing Louis better. Learning him, word by word, story by story. Asking him questions, and wanting to hear the answers. Holding him close, but not like with Nick, or Liam. Not as friends or even lovers, who know each other’s bodies like they know this city, habitual and familiar. It was instead this heady, unprecedented sense of _hereness._ Of solid ground, however fleeing— even as Harry had to tear himself away and run, because it wasn’t right, and he didn’t understand what this feeling was, and all he knows how to do, in the end, is keep running towards the next horizon. He has never known how to stay still— except right then, before reality intervened.

For Liam, however, more than halfway drunk on this bottle of wine, all Harry can muster is, “I wanted to stay, after.”

“For what?” Liam sounds oddly breathless.

But Harry only shrugs. “Just… to stay.” He takes a gulp of his wine, and refuses to look Liam in the eye.

Liam waits for a few seconds, or perhaps several Alaskan nights, the silence spiraling with the gravity of a crossroads, tension thick in the intersection between infinite paths. He then lets the movie play, and allows Harry to fall asleep to it in peace.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here, friends, we enter uncharted territory. I have not finished writing the next chapter, or the three after it— though I’ve made considerable progress since posting and hearing from you all! Updates will take a bit longer now, and I can’t promise when exactly they will come, but I hope you’ll stick with me here, and you are always encouraged to encourage my efficiency via comments and messages (here, plus I am @avengerlexa on Tumblr). Thanks for reading this far. x


	6. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shit you not, this chapter was the one I have been stuck on for LITERAL MONTHS. It has caused me considerable grief, so for that reason alone I’ll probably always hate it, but I think now it’s as good as it’s ever going to be, and I would like it to get out of my life now, so— here it is. I hope it reads better to you than it does to me.

The first Sunday in April can’t decide if it wants to deliver rain or snow. A cold, miserable drizzle, carried by a bitter spring wind and the remnants of winter’s ice, lingers all day and into the evening, a misty haze dampening the glow of the electric city. Harry is privately glad to be at the bar tonight til closing, safe and warm and dry as the weather threatens to spill over into the Monday morning commute. Liam, who took cover here during happy hour for the sake of free drinks, is now obsessively refreshing his weather app at 10pm, trying to find the right time to make a run for it and go home.

“Stupid weather,” he grumbles, staring daggers at his phone, as though it will sense his temper and send word to the “wintry mix” beyond their window. “Ugh, I’ll have to get a ride, and the upcharge will be terrible because everyone else will have had the same idea.”

Harry snorts, and refills Liam’s beer. “I’m here until 2am, so you’re welcome to stay as long as you need.”

“I should’ve just had wine at home,” Liam groans. “Why did I come out in this heinousness again?”

“Because we currently have no alcohol in the apartment, and you decided bumming drinks from me would be a better financial investment,” Harry informs him, pushing the now full mug closer towards him. “And, usually, it would be. But, well. Happy April Fool’s Day.”

Liam drinks to this in sullen silence. Harry fetches him some nachos in solidarity.

The bar is relatively busy for a Sunday evening, with people mostly looking for a place to sit out the rain. Harry is kept occupied, refilling drinks and making cocktails and chatting up some of the cuter customers, laughing gamely at their corniest jokes. Liam always clears his throat in polite mockery when this happens, listening to the banter while scrolling Twitter and refreshing his weather app; he doesn’t even need to look up for Harry to know he is rolling his eyes in spirit. After one customer in particular regales Harry with a string of terrible puns, which have him close to tears of laughter, Liam just sighs, waiting until the guy is out of earshot to say, “You are so full of shit, Styles. You and that stupid hyena cackle you do when you’re flirting. I can’t believe anyone falls for it.”

“Excuse you, I’m a charming free spirit, and everyone loves me for my good vibes,” Harry announces. “When will you finally let go of your snark and un-repress your poor sexuality, those huddled masses of love in your heart, yearning to breathe free—”

Liam is still looking at his phone when he throws a pinch of leftover nacho dust in Harry’s face. “Like I said. Full of shit.”

Harry just cackles, brushing the crumbs away and and moving along to pour a series of vodka shots for a group of waiting patrons. Liam puts in his headphones, and proceeds to stream Netflix on the bar’s WiFi, and together the two of them tend to their own in close, comfortable proximity, the rain swirling around in the distant outside. It’s a warm feeling, even as Harry continuously puts in orders and wipes down the counter around Liam’s lounging elbows.

Presently, however, the doors open, blasting the entrance radius with a gust of cold, as Harry leans back against the counter to check his phone. Liam frowns, but doesn’t look up from his own phone. Harry thinks vaguely that anyone off the clock who isn’t safely bundled up at home is a special brand of foolish, but tucks his phone away to offer the brave/foolish patron a drink— a blonde, college-aged guy, it turns out, breathless and pink-cheeked, and vaguely familiar somehow.

“Hey, get in, get in!” he calls out behind him in a lilting Irish accent, shaking the rain from his hair.

Trundling behind him are two more figures, shivering despite wearing North Faces with thick, fur-lined hoods. The three stand together at the front of the bar, catching their breath for a moment.

The one in the middle— the smallest— says, “Once I thaw out, I’m going to kill you, Niall.”

He lets his hood fall back, and Harry’s entire heart seems to lurch up his throat.

Louis.

It’s him, definitely; Harry feels it before he knows it, an arcane recognition that bypasses reason. Something about the shape of his face, the lines of his hair, even disheveled by a Chicago wind. He doesn’t notice Harry at first, glaring at his blonde companion, whom Harry now belatedly places as the sleeping roommate from their first session. But as Liam glances up, the third figure removes his hood as well— and it’s Zayn, his delicate features only enhanced by the cold, skin vibrant pink and eyes almost cartoonishly bright.

The four of them— Harry, Louis, Liam, and Zayn— make eye contact almost simultaneously, their faces registering mirroring astonishment. When Harry chances a glance at Liam, his expression is more appropriate to being struck head on by an errant frying pan. This, more than anything, breaks through Harry’s trance: his customer-service smile, bland and safe, kicks into action by muscle memory.

“Welcome in,” he says. “Can I get you started with some warm cider?”

Louis, Niall, and Zayn exchange looks— stunned, more than anything else— and nod, unzipping their coats and grabbing a stool each. Louis’s eyes have not left Harry’s— the blue of a midnight ocean tonight, and just as inscrutable, fixed on him like tide to moon. Harry feels an unwitting blush fermenting beneath his cheeks, and pours out ciders with perhaps more enthusiasm than necessary, to keep his hands active. Louis is sitting on the stool next to Liam’s, directly in front of him, watching. Guarded, a little intense, but not unfriendly. And on Liam’s other side sits Zayn, whose smile is as coy as it is exceedingly gentle— a magnetic curiosity and awe that glows with potential. Niall, sitting next to Louis, looks from one face to the next, bemused and also quite excited.

“So,” Harry says, sliding the three ciders forward, “what brings you all out here on this horrible evening?”

“Me,” says Niall, without a trace of shame. “I dragged them out to dinner in the city because classes start tomorrow, and I thought it would be fun to try this new Thai place. Except, the storm hit, and we have to get back to Evanston, so these two—” Niall points his thumbs towards his friends “— were all upset, and I suggested we come here for a drink until the weather lets up.”

“I’ve been waiting to go home too,” Liam finally manages, tearing his eyes from Zayn just long enough to make polite eye contact with Niall. “It’s been relentless.”

“April showers and all. We’re all April fools!” He cackles at his own joke. “Anyway. So we’re here now. And I’m Niall, by the way,” he explains. “We haven’t met before, but I’m Louis and Zayn’s other roommate.”

“Hi, I’m Liam.” He can’t reach to shake Niall’s hand from this angle, so Liam settles for an acknowledging nod across the counter. “I’m Harry’s roommate.”

“So funny we ran into you!” Niall chirps, seemingly impervious to the raw, tentative air of these proceedings. “And to think Louis and Zayn wanted to stay home and order pizza tonight.”

“It’s still going to be a hell of a time getting back,” Zayn points out churlishly. “If we don’t manage to catch a bus, you’re paying for the ride back. I have a 9am lecture tomorrow.”

“In what?” Liam asks with interest.

“Econometrics. I’m an econ major,” Zayn explains, in a much kinder tone. “I’m in my last quarter at Northwestern now, actually.”

“Cool!” Liam looks positively starry-eyed at the thought— which Harry must exercise considerable restraint not to laugh at, considering how Liam grumbles about the colonization of education by STEM fetishism on a regular basis. “I’m getting my masters in secondary education at UIC. I want to teach social studies— history, civics, that kind of thing.”

“My other major is in English!” Zayn abandons all pretense and turns his back to his friends, his body language and attention squarely focused on Liam. “I wanted to be an English teacher, actually, like for the elementary or middle school level. Or teach English abroad for a year, maybe. My plans still aren’t set for after graduation, though my parents would prefer I use the econ degree, get a consulting job—”

“My parents still say the same thing!” Liam is all but swooning. “But I just think it’s so important to properly educate the next generation on these critical issues, you know, with government and climate change and—”

“Absolutely,” Zayn gushes, “STEM is great but a liberal arts education emphasizing critical thinking is invaluable in today’s—”

“Can I get you a drink?” Liam blurts out, with barely contained enthusiasm.

“Yes,” Zayn returns with flourish, his half-drunk cider already forgotten.

“Is a beer okay? They do this great draft here— or we could have cocktails—”

“Beer sounds perfect. Whatever you recommend.”

Liam looks expectantly towards Harry, who once again has to discipline his features into suppressing his amusement. Liam has been drinking for free, and so will likely want this one on the house as well, which will not please Harry’s boss— but then again, for the sake of true love unexpectedly reunited, he supposes he can make a concession. Smiling to himself, Harry pours two beers, and Liam and Zayn promptly disappear to find a table of their own, and further discuss the state of education in America. This leaves him alone at the counter with Niall and Louis— except that a shrewd knowingness like a cloud cover over Niall’s bright blue eyes, and he rises to his feet as well.

“I think that basketball game over there is calling out to me, lads. Though,” he warns, chugging the last of his cider and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “I will likely be back for a beer. And maybe some nachos.”

With that, Niall grabs his coat and takes up residence at a single-seat couch near the TV— leaving Harry and Louis alone for real this time. Or, at least, as alone as they can be in this public space, crowded with witnesses. Harry is gripped with a persistent sense of wrong-footedness, unsure of what to say, yet certain that _some_ thing should likely be said. And Louis, for his part, seems reluctant to reveal himself on that count either.

Instead, they both let their eye lines drift back towards Zayn and Liam, who are chattering away at their tiny table. Neither one of them has touched their drinks yet. Harry can feel his own expression going soft, seeing Liam like this— so open and unrestrained. He was never like this with Sophia, or with any of the women he’s dated as long as Harry has known him. A part of him always held something back, so polite and so careful and so dedicated to being the best partner possible that he often forgot how to be… himself. Relaxed, joyous. Free.

“They seem happy,” Louis says at last, correctly interpreting the look on Harry’s face. “Zayn never thought…”

“Nor did Liam,” Harry says. “I mean, I know he hoped, but…”

Harry’s eyes meet Louis’s once more, and it’s complicated, the way they look at each other. Like they know each other, but only enough to realize how little they know at all. Harry leans forward with his elbows on the counter as Louis turns around on his stool, his back pressing against the bar; together they watch their friends, albeit always hyper-aware of the intangible weight of their not-quite-casual closeness.

It does not escape Harry’s notice that Louis is even lovelier than his memory was able to do justice. Or that barely a breath separates their arms from each other on this counter. Or that he is, in fact, glad that Louis and his friends accidentally wound up in his bar tonight, even if he isn’t certain yet what it means. Liam and Zayn are bubbling over with all the things there are to say, but Harry and Louis take their own time, looking on from afar. Tentatively getting used to each other again.

“I am sorry, you know, for that last time,” Louis remarks eventually, not daring to make eye contact. “I didn’t mean to screw it up. And I was embarrassed about that text the second I sent it.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry or embarrassed about,” Harry assures him. He chances a glance at Louis’s profile— simultaneously vulnerable and steady, long eyelashes fanning down with his own averted eyes. “You didn’t screw anything up; it was entirely on me. A line got crossed, and I didn’t want to make it any worse, so I just… tried to keep my distance. I thought that would be best.”

But now they’re both here. Sitting next to each other, talking about it. Louis appears to be thinking the same thing.

“Should I keep my distance too?” he asks. “Go watch the game with Niall until the rain stops? I can, if…”

Louis is looking at him now— Harry can feel the gentle weight of his eyes pulling him in, so that they are eventually looking at each other— and maybe that’s what’s best, he thinks. Maybe this is the moment when he is supposed to say no. Maybe Harry should allow Louis to leave the rest of the question unspoken, his own hesitation a tacit acquiescence that lets him off the hook— and maybe then they can make a clean break this time. Because Harry has gone and gotten attached, and there is a chance that Louis has too, and both of these possibilities seem to intimate a vague but imminent danger, especially under the golden mood lighting of this bar on this rainy night, some of Zayn and Liam’s magic lingering like in the air like fairy dust.

But Harry doesn’t do what he probably should. Instead, he lets a soft smile curve the nervous edges of his mouth, and his shoulder collides playfully, would-be-casually, with Louis’s.

“You can stay,” he says. “If you want.” It feels important to add this.

Louis hums noncommittally, and reaches back for his drink. He takes a long sip of it, still facing in Liam and Zayn’s direction, but this time his arm is pressed against Harry’s on the counter, the gesture as casual as it is deliberate.

And then he does.

He stays.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


“You shouldn’t put that piece there.”

“No?”

“Or there.”

Louis arches an eyebrow. “Why, because it would interfere with your plans to win with that slot?”

“Well of course,” Harry says, batting his eyelashes. “If I may recommend this slot instead, a safe distance over here…”

“Nice try.” Louis drops his black Connect Four piece into the aforementioned slot with flourish.

Harry gives an exaggerated sigh, green eyes all drama. “Oh, fine. I won’t win with that one… I’ll win with this one instead! HA! CONNECT FOUR!”

And he drops his red piece into a different slot, making a diabolically subtle diagonal of four that Louis had yet to notice. He groans in consternation while Harry crows and dances, thrusting his narrow hips like an insult wildly disproportionate to the injury. This round marks the seventh time he’s won, officially breaking the night’s dead-heat tie between them. Louis clears the board, the red and black pieces clattering onto the counter, and waits semi-politely for Harry to finish celebrating.

It’s past 1am now, and the rain continues to pour, water lashing against the windows fast and hard and with no seeming intention of letting up. Most of the other patrons have left already, lending the bar an almost dreamlike intimacy— like the aftermath of a good house party, lounging amidst the detritus of a raucous time, warm and placid in the space between inebriation and sleep.

But both Louis and Harry are wide awake, hanging around the bar with the battered game box and pieces between them. That had been Harry’s idea: once the place started to clear out in earnest around midnight, he had produced two decks of cards and the Connect Four from behind the bar on an impulse.

“With this rain and the state of your friends, it looks like you’re in for the long haul tonight with me,” he’d said with a grin. “Unless you want to just cut your losses and bail now?”

Louis turned around to glance at his compatriots— Zayn and Liam, yet to emerge from their impenetrable bubble, Niall, falling asleep in his chair with his empty glass still in hand— but when he answered he had eyes only for Harry. Harry, who was a little tired, perhaps, his rosy face lightly beaded with sweat, but who was now smiling a smile so lovely that every flora in Louis’s gut bristled with it. Harry, who said he could stay.

“Nah, I’ll stick around. If it’s okay with you, of course.”

“Of course!” Harry laughed.

So they set up the games, and they’ve managed to pass a good chunk of time together like this. Like it really could be this easy, this casually uncomplicated— like Louis isn’t sunk eyeball-deep into a monstrous crush he couldn’t bury or rationalize or abstract away. Like they could be just two boys in a bar, killing time late on a Sunday night, with some trendy song blaring overhead. Like they can trash-talk and tease and attempt to misdirect each other into fatal blunders in Connect Four in this smooth, frictionless spacetime-out-of-time, where the world is distantly at bay, and the past is weightless, and the future can be delayed indefinitely.

Harry is in his element, gloriously dimple-grinned and wearing his tight black skinny jeans that make his legs look like two miles of freshly poured road. He throws his head back laughing, as coolly inscrutable as he is magnetic, and he manages to win several games through sheer distraction by banter.

And Louis has been quite distractible tonight, apparently.

“We should’ve had a real bet going, so that this moment would be more fun for the winner, aka me,” Harry muses aloud now, beaming with entirely too much glee as he starts stacking both the red and black chips into towers.

“You can propose a loser’s penalty— within reason,” Louis says.

Harry mulls it over. “Okay. How about… you can be the one to tell those two lovebirds that I’m supposed to close in forty-three minutes, so they’ve got to pull themselves together and leave.”

Louis snorts. “Zayn is so full of shit. He made such a stink about econometrics tomorrow on our way here, and now look at him.”

Indeed, Zayn doesn’t appear to have ever encountered the word econometrics in his lifetime, despite needing to attend a lecture in Evanston in under eight hours.

“Liam is usually concerned about his beauty sleep on school nights and never stays in this bar past ten, so I know what you mean,” Harry says with a smirk. But his expression quickly softens: “You know, I’ve really never seen him like this before, ever, with anyone. _And_ this is the first time he’s ever had a crush on a man.”

“I haven’t seen Zayn like this before either,” Louis admits. “I’ve known him since our freshman year, and he _never—_ I mean, he generally doesn’t date at all.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’d be surprised,” Louis says wryly. “People get distracted by the Bambi eyes and the bone structure, but Zayn is… shyer than he seems. Behind the cheekbones he’s basically a big dork who geeks out about comic books, and loves his sisters, and wants to do his family proud. He’s the kind of person that doesn’t bother with a relationship unless he’s serious about it.”

“Liam is like that too.” Harry glances fondly in his direction. “He’s a teddy bear of a human being. Loyal to a fault.”

“So is Zayn, but he’s just… never been in love. None of us three have, me or Zayn or Niall.” Louis clears his throat. “We’re kind of the bachelor type. Niall’s currently more interested in Democratic voter registration for the midterms than he is in going on dates. And Zayn’s been pretty hyper-focused on school and career stuff.”

“And you?” Harry asks, eyes twinkling.

The color floods to Louis’s cheeks. “Holding out. And busy with med school.” A pause. “What about you?”

“Unattached.” The word is delivered like a light spritz, like perfume; Harry’s playful expression doesn’t change. “I like to keep things casual.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Louis says, equally lightly, though the bottom of his stomach chooses this moment to go into free fall.

“So,” Harry changes the subject back around, grinning as he slams his fist on the counter, making Louis jump. “Rousing Zayn and Liam from their lust-stupor. Do you accept this penalty as the terms for our mighty wager?”

“Sure, I guess,” Louis says, but he’s grinning too. “Honestly, Zayn won't be too bad once I remind him he’s got lecture. Waking up Niall is going to be the real challenge. He sleeps like the dead, and isn’t easily moved by arguments for academic responsibility.”

“Does he have class in the morning?”

“No, which is exactly the problem— I have no leverage.”

Harry laughs. “You’ll think of something.”

“If nothing else works, I’ll just pour water over his head,” Louis decides. “Or pretend I’m Human Rights Watch offering him a job or something. If he’d believe hiring managers call this late.”

“Job hunting, huh?” Harry asks sympathetically. “It’s a bitch and a half. Are they looking for full-time post-grad work?”

“Yeah. They graduate in June.” A tight knot of anxiety— always present in the background of his thoughts— tightens ever more painfully when Louis allows the reminder to enter the forefront of his mind.

“And you’re not, because you’re in your first year of med school, right?”

Louis nods with what he believes to be a passable imitation of casualness, but his features must betray him somehow because Harry’s expression softens, his eyes kind and evergreen.

“I’m sorry. You all seem close, so I imagine the transition might be tough at first.”

Harry’s tone is gentle, but the words are like salt in an already tender wound; Louis’s stomach seems to fold in on itself, a sick kind of anticipation aching somewhere deep, related and not-related to the topic at hand. He tries to train his gaze back to Harry’s red and black stacked Connect Four Chips, but the pressure builds up behind his eyes nonetheless.

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Harry continues after a long moment. “Want to go another couple of rounds? Try to get a loser’s penalty in on me?”

Louis allows himself a watery smile. “Nah, it’s fine. And I’m fine too. I’m happy for them.”

“You can be happy for them and also a little sad for yourself,” Harry points out. “Do they want to stay in Chicago at all after graduation?”

“I think they’d like to. But it depends on what’s out there.”

“Makes sense. This is a great city, but there are lots of great cities,” Harry says fairly. “It’s kind of similar to me, actually. I’m applying to law school this cycle, in the fall. It’s why I’m interning for Legal Aid.”

“Oh!” Somehow, despite having no expectations, this is not what Louis expected. The knot in his stomach somehow gets impossibly tighter. “Where do you think you’ll apply?”

“Anywhere, everywhere. I’m not picky about geography. All I care about is getting into a top twenty five school with decent financial aid.” He delivers this remark with such blasé matter-of-factness that Louis can only stare, agape.

“Seriously? Where is your family from? Would you want to stay close to them?”

“My mother lives in Lisle, not far from here, and my sister’s in Atlanta,” Harry explains. “So Emory might be cool since Gemma’s already there, but I wouldn’t go specifically for her. Nor would I stay specifically in Chicago, though it would be nice not to have to haul my stuff around cross-country.”

“So, the place should choose you, not the other way around.”

He considers. “Sure, yeah.”

Louis’s immediate instinct is a kind of horror— and yet, as he lets it sink in, he thinks aloud, “I guess that makes a certain amount of sense. And it’s my future too, honestly— where rotations end up being, where I manage to get a residency. I don’t have much control over any of it.”

“It’s the same for anyone our age, just starting and figuring things out,” Harry says. “It’s better not to be constrained by geography, if possible.”

“I had to leave home young to chase this incredible opportunity at Northwestern, and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Louis admits. He pulls Harry’s neat red-and-black stacks towards himself, knocks them over, and starts rebuilding them. “And I know I’ll have to leave again, and I get why I have to be flexible about it. But I also think… I don’t know, building roots is also important at this time in our lives.”

“Moving and building roots don’t have to be mutually exclusive.” Harry steals one of the black pieces, plays idly with it between his fingers. “You had to move for school— and look, you’ve made new roots here in Chicago. You wouldn’t have met Niall and Zayn if you hadn’t left home. You don’t know what— or who— is going to matter to you unless you keep moving and leave yourself open to whatever happens.”

“That goes both ways, though,” Louis counters. “Like, okay, you might miss out on new experiences by staying in one place— but you also miss out on new experiences by not sticking around long enough to make your relationships meaningful. Real roots take time. Like— I’m not saying you or I or Zayn or Niall shouldn’t move if and when the right opportunities come along, because we should. But I also think that stability is important. And underrated.”

Harry sets his black chip down, looking rather unwillingly impressed. “Alright. Point taken.” He slides the chip across the counter to Louis. “You sure you don’t want to play one more round before I have to kick everyone out and close the bar?”

The chip is warm and a little sticky from Harry’s palm, his body heat, the alcoholic residue all over his fingers. Louis closes his hand around it, the plastic grooves lightly imprinted into his skin.

“If I win, can we exchange numbers and Twitters and whatever?” Louis asks, tone determinedly light.

“I thought you had my number,” says Harry.

“No,” Louis answers, and leaves it at that.

“Well, it’s fine, we can exchange contact info regardless,” Harry assures him easily. “I think, with our friends as besotted as they are, you and I have no choice but to become friends now.”

He says this, bright and casual and teasing— but there is also something about the way he immediately grabs a bar napkin and a fake-quill pen, and scrawls his phone number and his Twitter and Tumblr and Instagram handles, and climbs over the bar in one practiced, fluid motion to stuff the crumpled napkin into the front pocket of Louis’s jeans.

“For safekeeping,” he says, patting and smoothing down the tiny bulge of the napkin with his hand perhaps once or twice more than strictly necessary, standing so close that Louis gets a strong, intoxicating whiff of cologne and vodka. Harry just beams, somehow both sunny and impassive, and perches himself on the bar stool beside Louis to play the game.

A few minutes later, after both of them have successfully deterred each other’s Connect Fours a couple of times, Louis amends his proposal. “If I win, I want to keep this,” he says, holding up the black chip Harry had been playing with.

“You’re too easy,” Harry chortles, dropping a chip to block Louis’s vertical attempt. “You should ask for something better. Like free drinks.”

“Lucky for you I don’t!” Louis retorts, dropping his chip on top of Harry’s and completing a stealth diagonal. “Because, HA! I win!”

“Amazing,” Harry concedes, high-fiving Louis so hard his palm seems to tingle afterward. “A well-deserved victory for us to end on. Here, take a red one too, champ— you’ve earned it.”

He presses the second chip into Louis’s palm, their fingers gently grazing each other in the exchange and Harry’s hand, again, lingering just a half second too long on Louis’s. Harry’s mouth is so vividly pink, like strawberries and cream with his pale skin. Louis feels heat building up in the nape of his neck, the tips of his ears— a smoldering pleasure that aches as much as it thrills.

“It was good to see you tonight, Louis,” Harry says, quietly but sweetly.

“Yeah.” Louis sighs the word— warm, wistful. “You too.”

Harry’s smile flickers like candlelight, and then he steps back behind the counter, busying himself with his cleaning cloth— not a dismissal, exactly, but nevertheless a retreat. A distance, now, as the rest of the real world beckons, with no clear sense of whether this is a beginning or an ending for them. Their eyes don’t meet again, as Louis, recognizing his time to surrender, looks from Zayn to Niall, and decides to start with Zayn.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


They finally get back to Evanston at two thirty in the morning via Uber. It feels inappropriate to debrief such a night while squashed into the backseat of a stranger’s car, so it’s not until they are all safely standing in their own living room— exhausted, exhilarated— that Zayn finally takes a deep breath, and says, _“Fuck.”_ Breathes it, like it’s a sacred word, a bemused invocation. It seems all he is able to articulate tonight.

Niall just snorts. “Remember this moment when you’re tempted to yell at me about the cost of that Uber ride,” he calls out over his shoulder as he retreats to bed. “Good night, lads!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, we continue in uncharted waters. I have not written the next chapter yet (though, I have outlined it now). I can’t promise when I’ll update, but I hope this one went okay! Let me know in a comment if you’ve got a second. x


	7. seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here I am, back again, after a stupidly long time struggling, worrying, writing and fussing, and trying to keep up with the hamster wheel of life all the while. Sorry for the wait. But I hope you enjoy this. I’ll try to be faster for the next one.

Monday morning arrives too soon— cool and sober, a gray sky slowly dissolving the inky pre-dawn dark. The knot in Louis’s stomach precedes consciousness, tight and anxious and a little disorienting: he jolts awake a minute before his alarm is set to ring, breath sounds shallow and rapid, his mind already racing. The apartment is completely silent save for Zayn’s snoring, measured and peaceful on the other side of the room. It takes one, two, three, four, five seconds for Louis to remember where he is, and what happened a scant few hours ago— simultaneously vivid and surreal, like shimmering sands streaming between his fingers. The dinner, the storm, the bar. Zayn and Liam. Harry. _Harry._

A shiver slides like an ice cube down Louis’s spine.

He’s almost late by the time he manages to convince himself to leave the warm cocoon of his comforter, a reality made even worse by the unhappy discovery that they are fresh out of K-cups. Cursing under his breath, Louis gets dressed and locks his sleeping roommates safely inside the apartment on his way out. Excess slush and puddles from last night’s downpour persist in the mud and uneven sidewalk tiles, but without the wind now, the cold feels calm. Clean, somehow. He shuffles towards the bus stop three yards away, yawning into the crook of his elbow in the soft weak sunlight.

According to the semi-reliable tracking app on his phone, the bus should at least be on time today. Probably.

He’s never really considered himself an early riser, but one thing he’s learned this year has been to try and savor these quiet mornings— standing here on Noyes Street in the dewey chill, feeling like the only person alive on the block while he waits for the Intercampus Shuttle. This is his time to fully awaken, to transition into the rest of his day. He can picture himself in this spot in every temperature, every color— like a montage, an aesthetic indelibly associated with this particular time in his life. Niall and Zayn’s senior year, Louis’s first year out of medical school. Tracking the sun, the shortening and then the slow lengthening of days— the sunrise fully cresting now in April with the time change. Almost the end of this school year, and the end of an era, before they are released into the great adult beyond.

The bus eventually rumbles down the street and belches to a stop to let him on, and he swings into the first available seat, practiced hands holding his notes steady through the vehicle’s various bumps, its rolling stops and starts. And as Louis reviews the intricacies of cell cycles through bleary eyes— it’s like the light slants, and the world slants with it, and the realization sinks in for him, all at once. That this is it— here, on the bus in early spring. This is his real adult life. And he is trying to live it well, but he can’t quite shake the worry that he should be trying to live even bigger somehow. Taking more risks— finding a way to feel less afraid of this vast, strange, wondrous world. Years from now, looking back on this moment, what will his future self have regretted more? Recklessly exposing his heart, or too fiercely protecting it?

He is only twenty years old, tender and uncertain, his intellect in some ways so much older than his heart. He just feels so small, and wants so much. Wants to belong somewhere, and fit comfortably inside his own skin; wants to be brave enough to kiss Harry Styles like a man, grown up and sure. Hands touching— exploring, intertwining. A question answered, a hunger sated. 

Louis tries to retrain his eyes to the work ahead of him, but it ferments restlessly in his blood, fizzing to distraction. Desire is a funny thing that way, simultaneously chaotic and one-track minded. The bus arrives at Ward on time, and his day begins in earnest— the usual lectures, group consultation, lunch, a clinical observation bloc. And it seems like it should be impossible, the morning’s pluperfect nostalgia coexisting with such mundane, physical, daily routine. But the napkin Harry had scrawled upon last night is still tucked inside the pocket of Louis’s jeans, as are the two Connect Four chips— archival treasures holding the intersecting timelines together— and he senses some trace of that raw magic imbued even in this return to normalcy. Like that feeling on the precipice of confession: like nothing is different, and yet everything has changed. 

On the bus ride back to Evanston, he thinks about opening the crumpled napkin. Searching for the Twitter account, the Instagram account. Re-inputting the number into his phone, staring at the new clean slate of their chat history. All these little access codes Harry has granted him into his life.

But Louis doesn’t do that. Doesn’t chase these dangerous feelings where he knows he cannot follow them. He leaves the game chips and the napkin where Harry tucked them into his pocket, and puts in his headphones for the rest of the ride home.

  
  


.

  
  


.

  
  


“So…” 

Caroline Watson has a thoughtful look on her face— expectant, alert, even a little humorous in the way her nose crinkles and her eyes sparkle with self-awareness. Louis, currently pink and sweating with the now-excessive heat of the clanging radiator, feels his innards bracing themselves.

“So?” he asks, trying to roll up his sleeves as far up as they’ll go and thus conveniently averting his gaze.

 _“So,_ we are six minutes into our first session in weeks, and all you’ve said to me so far is ‘hi’ and ‘okay’ and ‘I’m fine,’” Caroline points out, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips.

 “You asked me how I was.” 

“Indeed I did. We left off in a pretty intense spot before you went on spring break— and you canceled our last four scheduled sessions.” Her tone is neutral and even, nonjudgmental to the point of inscrutability. “How have you been, Louis?”

 “Busy,” he says truthfully, though his face flushes a delicate pink.

Indeed, it has now been about a month since he sat in this office, on this green couch, disclosing the mangled memory of his assault under Caroline’s deep brown gaze— and he wasn’t lying when he cited an uptick in responsibilities requiring his full attention since then.

They’re well into April now, the days getting longer and wetter. This part of the year always feels like it sneaks up on him— the fulcrum between the bitter cold and summer sweetness, the bare trees and dry mud suddenly blooming green. And the post-spring break period— the end of Louis’s semester, the start of Niall and Zayn’s final quarter— is a compressed whirlwind of activity, the open white squares of Louis’s calendar already filling fast with lines of his cramped handwriting. Besides the usual avalanche of coursework, Louis has his first-year exams taking place in early May, just a couple of weeks away; after that he has four weeks of lab work scheduled for his diabetes project; graduation is the twenty-first of June; and the last day of July is marked in capital letters in his planner, END OF LEASE, at which point Niall, Zayn, and Louis all need to have their new living arrangements set, and with them, their foreseeable futures.

He tells Caroline as much— about the research planning, the study guide writing, the start of an apartment search in downtown Chicago. And she listens, as she always does, with a patience like the steady patter of spring rain.

“That’s a lot going on at the same time,” she says, when he takes a breath to pause and deflates into silence.

Louis nods, focusing his eyes on the fraying ends of his sweater, the soft worn blue on the knees of his jeans.

Caroline considers this for a long moment— so long that Louis manages to muster the strength to look back up at her, curious. Her expression is shrewd, her features firm as she apparently settles on a decision.

“Okay,” she says— announces. “Why don’t we do this, why don’t we just… get out of here.”

Louis blinks, the space between his brows wrinkled in confusion. “What?”

“Let's get out of here,” Caroline repeats, beaming. “Come on, I can see you’re feeling hot and stuffy, and I know for sure I am, cooped up in here all day with this noisy, inconsistent radiator. Let’s get some fresh air— there’s a Starbucks a few minutes walk from here where we can get caffeinated. Let’s go.”

She bounces up to her feet, yanks her plum-colored purse up to her shoulder, and offers a befuddled Louis her hand to help him up. He hesitates for a beat, but takes it, lets her hoist him up and lead him out of her office.

“Should I bring my stuff?” Louis asks from the doorway, gesturing to his jacket and backpack.

“Yeah, go ahead. That way you don’t have to come back here for it,” says Caroline.

Still mystified, Louis picks up his things, and Caroline locks the door behind him.

He follows her down the stairs and out of the renovated house, a path he’s always walked alone. It feels a little surreal, seeing Caroline outside of their usual context like this— out here in the great mundane, walking down the sidewalk together in the nippy April cool. It takes almost half a block for Louis to find his stride beside her, get used to her rhythm and pace. She walks briskly, even in her heeled boots, her hands in her pockets and her curls bouncing gently with the breeze. She’s his therapist, keeper of his secrets, confined in his mind to her office armchair— but right now she could be any anonymous, well-dressed Evanstonian enjoying the afternoon, with her mustard-yellow pants and leather jacket, her silver hoop earrings and the gauzy purple scarf wrapped like a garland around her neck.

Not for the first time, Louis registers how young she is— graceful, beautiful, with habits and secrets and a past of her own. Dr. Caroline Watson, PhD. Grew up somewhere, got an education, made a career. Someone’s daughter, someone’s best friend. Someone’s mom.

She holds the door open for him when they arrive at Starbucks; he catches a whiff of gardenias and shea butter as he passes. “And hey, it’s my treat,” she adds, pulling out her wallet to signal her intent for both Louis and the barista.

“No, it’s okay, I can get my own,” Louis tries weakly, but she shakes her head in that formidable way he associates with his own mother. 

“Order, then pick a table for us,” says Caroline.

Ears flushed red, he does as he’s told.

The cafe is mostly empty, besides a handful of isolated figures hunched over books and laptops, working quietly next to power outlets. Louis chooses to wander over to a table by the window. The afternoon light shines directly onto his face, but he finds he doesn’t mind it, shrugging out of his jacket and gazing absently into the view of the quiet sidewalk. It occurs to him, in a somewhat arbitrary and absentminded kind of way, that he never would have expected his day to take this turn when he woke up for class in the morning— and somehow, this observation just sits there, on the surface of him. Like cream, floating on top of the skim; like he’s a buoy bobbing in the choppy depths beyond the shallows. A precarious kind of settled, of waiting.

Caroline arrives presently, the smell of their drinks— a tall americano for him, a grande white chocolate mocha for her— a gentle break in his reverie. She also brings a warmed-up chocolate chip cookie, which she breaks into two with manicured fingers, and pushes towards him on a napkin.

“Bon appetit!” she chirps, biting into her half and chasing it down with the coffee. 

Louis takes a sip of his, but puts it down almost at once. “Is this, like… a thing? Is this allowed?”

“At my discretion, yes.” Caroline smiles. “We’re still doing therapy, and we’ll leave when your hour is up— this is only a change in location. A fun little field trip, per se.”

“Why?” Louis can’t help but ask.

She takes another small bite of her cookie, chewing it and swallowing fully before she answers. When she does, her voice is inexpressibly kind.

“Listen. I can see you’re having a hard time right now, with the end of the semester and all that you’ve been through personally the last few weeks. You’ve come such a long way, and I’m so proud of you.” She pauses for a single beat, the slight waver in her voice hanging in the suddenly-raw stillness between them. “What we do together is hard— it’s work, it takes effort and energy— but I also… I never want our sessions to feel like one more chore on your very long to-do list. My main purpose is to help you live the best possible version of your life, which is what you deserve— and if that means you need a refuge to just, like, catch your breath for a minute— then that’s what we’ll do. There’s no pressure, alright? I’m always going to meet you wherever you are.”

Louis’s breath catches in his throat. His feelings— always so unsettled, swirling through and between the many layers of his selfhood— overflow their bounds, making his fingers quiver over the heat of his cup, the pressure building up high behind his eyes. 

“I— I don’t know what to say to that,” he says, his voice wet. “Thanks doesn’t seem like enough.” 

“No thanks necessary. Just talk to me.” She edges the napkin with his cookie a little closer to him. “Eat, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

This time Louis does break off a piece, savoring the flood of rich chocolate in his mouth. The lingering sweetness blends well with the bitterness of his americano, and the sunshine is warm on his cheek. He tries to let himself relax, even as his heart feels scraped through with emotion after what Caroline said. 

“I just… I don’t know, I have no idea where my head is at half the time,” he admits. “Like, there’s all the work stuff, exams coming, making arrangements for my first-year research project, which I want to try and get in publishable shape for next year— but then, it’s also… Zayn has a _boyfriend.”_

He doesn’t mean to state it so baldly, or really to state it at all, but the urgency that colors the words feels true. Caroline looks interested over her coffee cup.

“Really? Who is he?”

“His name is Liam. He’s actually Harry’s roommate. The guy I cuddled with?” Louis swallows the lump in his throat with some difficulty. “We, um— me, Niall, and Zayn— we went to this bar right before classes started, and Liam and Harry were there. Harry’s a bartender, and we accidentally wandered into the place where he works.”

Caroline’s eyes glitter with something like understanding. “So you saw Harry again.”

Louis can’t bring himself to do more than nod.

“That must have been a surprise. And now Zayn is dating his friend?” 

“They met the first time when Harry and I did our introductory meeting. Stranger danger and all that, so we both apparently had the foresight to bring our friends. And Zayn was definitely interested from the start, but he’s— you know, he’s shy, and he doesn’t like to date much because he thinks it’s a waste of time unless it’s serious, and he thought Liam might be straight, and it felt weird to ask for a phone number from the friend of a guy your friend is hiring for a therapeutic reason, so… he never said anything. Tried never to talk about it again. Except, they ran into each other that night, like it was fate or something— and now they’re dating.”

“And Liam is his first serious boyfriend,” Caroline clarifies.

Louis nods again. The coffee is a hot, bracing lubricant for all the stickiness clogging up his insides; he takes refuge in his cup, closing his eyes as he drains it. When he re-emerges, Caroline is watching him with another one of her shrewd expressions.

“You know what I’m going to ask you,” she says.

“How does that make me feel?”

Caroline smiles, but her eyes retain their seriousness. It’s a loaded question, and she knows it. Louis sighs. 

It’s only been a couple of weeks, but it’s already getting difficult to remember a time when Zayn wasn’t with Liam— wasn’t trading evenings between Evanston and Lakeview, only returning to Noyes Street to sleep. Niall is usually the one who’s out at all hours, coming and going like an errant wind; Zayn was always more of a homebody, doing his homework on the couch with one earphone in, sharing a companionable silence and sometimes a pizza with Louis. The apartment feels quieter now, emptier, without Zayn’s reliable presence grounding the space— and even in the moments when he’s back, talking about the usual things, there is this new, unfamiliar character inhabiting the landscape of his stories, making memories with a different side of Zayn. The side of him that is Liam’s boyfriend— private, romantic, belonging to him in a way he doesn’t belong to his friends.

Louis fiddles with the cardboard ring around his cup, uneasy and inchoate feelings swirling through his chest. He makes to take another sip of coffee, but doesn’t. 

“I’m happy for them,” he says, bloodlessly.

“I know you are.” Caroline’s voice is gentle.

“I just…”

He doesn’t expect her to, but she supplies the rest of the sentence, the words he can’t quite bring himself to admit: “You just miss him.”

“I shouldn’t,” he adds quickly. “I know it’s stupid, I mean, he’s my roommate, he literally sleeps in the bed across from mine. And he’s happy, so I’m happy too.”

“But also, you miss him.”

Louis searches Caroline’s face for something, anything— a clue, a prompt, a judgment— but she is as impassive as she is gracious, polishing off the rest of her cookie half while holding his gaze.

“I… I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Try,” she says.

“It’s just…” He bites his lip, searching the ceiling now for the words his throat won’t offer up. “Everything changed so _fast_ for them. Like love at first sight, like they were lying in wait all this time for that one night when they finally got to be together. There was no, like, uncertainty, or hesitation. They just… fit.”

“This is his first serious boyfriend,” Caroline echoes.

“Right. And… and… I guess I thought that… I wouldn’t have to think about losing him until Commencement.”

He feels his voice wobble, then fracture, around the last word— _the_ word, perhaps the heart of the matter. He makes to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand, but Caroline wordlessly produces a tissue from her bag, which Louis presses to his eyelids until the pressure subsides.

“It’s okay,” says Caroline’s voice, soft but steady. “It’s okay, Louis.”

“Is it?” He puts the napkin down, and throws back the rest of his coffee in one impatient gulp. “I don’t know, I just—”

“You were preparing yourself for one kind of loss, and now you’ve got to contend with this more ambiguous, unexpected one,” Caroline finishes for him. 

“I’m happy for them,” Louis insists. 

“I know you are. There’s no question about it— we’re taking that for granted,” she says. “But it doesn’t mean you don’t have some important, complicated feelings.”

“I’m sick of having complicated feelings,” he says bluntly. “I’m way too tired and way too busy. Wringing myself dry like this whenever we talk, like… the school year is almost over, and I want to be happy for my friend, for his new relationship and whatever new life he’s going to have after he graduates, and I want to feel… normal.”

“What does normal mean?”

“Like— you know, just, neutral. Nothing’s wrong, and I’m not freaking out, or, or, obsessing— and everything is calm. Boring.”

Caroline nods, absorbing this with her usual thoughtful stoicism. But when she speaks, her question takes Louis by surprise.

“Tell me about seeing Harry at the bar the night Zayn and Liam met.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, a little too quickly.

“Well, it was a significant night for your friend, but it was also a significant night for you.” She takes a small sip of her coffee. “The last time we saw each other, you talked a bit about how much Harry meant to you.”

“And you told me not to see him again,” he reminds her.

“So I did,” says Caroline. “At that time, in those circumstances, I thought taking a step back seemed to be the right thing to do.”

“I tried to text him anyway. After that session.” His cheeks go pink with the admission, but her expression doesn’t change. “I asked him if we could go for coffee, talk. And he turned me down.”

“So how did he react to seeing you at the bar?”  

“He was surprised, at first. Obviously. I was too. But then… I don’t know.” Louis lets his shoulders sag, his posture collapsing in on itself like a bad soufflé. “Taking a step back didn’t change anything. I still like talking to him. And he seemed to like talking to me. We’re in each other’s orbit now, with Zayn and Liam, and I want to be his friend, but…”

“But?” Caroline prompts.

He rubs his face in his hands, a swell of helpless desire spilling through him with breathtaking velocity. He’s tried so hard not to think about this— tried so hard to be good, to focus on the hundreds of other things going on in his life right now— but Harry is a sore spot somewhere behind his heart that won’t heal, a secret pocket of guilt and ache and crave and want that he tries so hard to smother with the many logistics of living, but which flares with blood at the slightest provocation.

He can’t look Caroline in the eye, he can’t. But he can’t lie, either. He tells the window, the sidewalk of normal strangers beyond the glass, beyond his reach: “I want us to be friends, but I know I’m always going to want more than his friendship.”

Caroline goes quiet for a few moments, brows wrinkling with thought. He chances a glance at her as he checks his empty coffee cup for dregs. She tucks her hair behind her ears, and the sun shifts from behind the clouds, and her eyes are a handsome cognac brown in this light, seeing right through him as usual.

“What do you like about Harry?” she asks eventually. 

Louis tilts his head in confusion. 

“What draws you to him, exactly?” she clarifies. “Why is it Harry, specifically, on your mind right now?”

It’s a question he’s asked himself many times, but it sounds different when articulated by Caroline. Sounds sober, curious— something layered to unwrap with careful fingers, rather than a titanium bat with which to beat his sore spot every night. He runs a restless hand through his hair, a puff of a sigh lukewarm and unsatisfying against his wrist. He opens his mouth without the conscious impulse to do so, and lets the words form themselves on his tongue, listening to himself as much as he is speaking.

“I… have always had confidants, friends I love and trust mutually. But I didn’t realize that there could be this totally different feeling where, it’s not just the five thousand questions you want to ask the other person, most of which basically boil down to, ‘who do you love, and who loves you?’ It’s also that you can want to share yourself, as urgently as you want to share in someone. I keep thinking about things I want to tell him. Stories about my family, about my research project, about my Twitter feed and my Netflix queue. I still want to tell him about what happened to me. I stage the conversation in my head all the time. I… I don’t know why that seems so urgent. I just know that he made me feel brave when I was frozen and scared, and I’ve never felt like that before. Like being brave was possible, and even kind of exhilarating, because of the person next to me.”

“The people we desire, and the way we desire them, tell us a lot about ourselves, and what we fear and need,” says Caroline, petal-soft. “After all, we don’t see the world as it is. We see it only as we are.” 

“I know you’ll want me to answer this for myself, but this one time— can you just tell me what I fear and what I need? Please?” There is a raw, plaintive note in his tone to Louis’s own ears; like his skin has been stripped to the floor, leaving every inch of him shivering, including his voicebox.

Caroline’s face is like the clear stillness after summer rain. “That question alone should tell you a lot.”

He wraps his arms around himself, shoulders sagging inward, protectively. “Yeah. Probably. But I don’t know. I can’t think anymore. I can’t do everything I need to do and also feel this way. How am I supposed to study for exams tonight now?” He bites down hard on his lower lip. “I wish everything would stay still for a couple of days.” 

“I know it’s a cliche, but it’s true and that’s why people continue to say it: the only way out is through.” On this, she is firm. “You have a very human, understandable desire to suppress your own complications and try to focus on basic survival. But that’s a band-aid on a bullet hole, if you can forgive me another useful cliche. What we do— the opening up, the brutal honesty— that hurts in the short-term, but in the long-term, it’s clearing the air so you can actually breathe in everything life has to offer.”

“But there’s no answers. I don’t know what I’m supposed to _do,_ about Zayn or about Harry, or about all these deadlines.”

“You’re already doing what you’re supposed to do,” she says, cracking a smile. “You’re talking to me about it. I gave you the opportunity to chat about whatever over coffee, and you just flogged your guts all over this table— because you’re a survivor. You take what you need to get through this. All I do is give you space to figure out what’s what.”

Despite everything, a faint glow of warmth lights up in Louis’s chest, somewhere close to the sore spot. Like sunlight, it exposes, it crackles— and it expands the horizon. He curls his hands into the ends of his sweater sleeves, and he takes a moment to look, really look, into Caroline’s valentine of a face. Until he can’t see her anymore, and then until she’s all he can see.

“One more concrete, practical question.” 

“Shoot your shot.” Her eyes twinkle. 

“Harry gave me his number and his social media handles at the bar, but I haven’t used them yet. Do you think I should?”

“Well.” She gives him a pointed look. “I think he already gave you the answer when he gave you that information.”

“I keep thinking that, because I hired him to cuddle me, and I was just another client… and I’m hardly a Michaelangelo painting like Zayn, and I might be too fucked up for a relationship even if he wanted one…”

“You’re no longer his client, and you’ve both respected each other’s boundaries,” says Caroline. “If you now want to re-negotiate those boundaries, then that’s a conversation to have with him.” A pause. “And everyone’s got baggage, Louis. Baggage is no reason to deny ourselves love, and connection, and intimacy. You and I are still doing our work together, and you’re thinking things through before you act. Those are the things that matter.”

“Do you have baggage?” The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop himself.

“Of course I do,” says Caroline cheerfully, without a trace of embarrassment.

“And you talk to people about it? Do therapists have therapists?”

“Everyone should have a therapist, frankly. Since graduate school, I’ve scheduled a session or two with mine every six months. I think of it like a check-up with any doctor— like going to the dentist for a cleaning. Maintenance work, you know? I schedule more sessions if I need them, too. It’s important self-care for me.” 

“This job must be stressful,” Louis remarks. 

“Any labor you do can cause stress. I feel lucky that I get to meet so many wonderful clients, and talk them through the hard stuff. I like being able to help.”

“You’re really good at it.”

Caroline beams, like she’s genuinely touched. “Thank you. And thank you for your trust. I don’t take it lightly.” She glances down at her watch. “We’re a little over, but that seems like a good place to leave things. Are you okay, Louis?”

He turns the question over in his mind, and finds, to his mild surprise, that he nods. Even smiles a little, despite the unsettled way in which his heart skitters in its bone cage. The late afternoon sun feels sweet on his skin.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks for… all this.”

Caroline’s smile only broadens. “See you Thursday?”

“Yeah, Thursday.” 

She looks like she wants to hug him, but she doesn’t. Instead, she picks up his empty cup and crumb-stained napkin along with her own, tosses them out, and then rests her hand on Louis’s shoulder. The weight of her hand is bracing, reassuring. He savors it for a beat, and offers her a real smile when she lets go. She swings her purse onto her shoulder for the second time today, and walks him out of the Starbucks.

“Take care,” she says, meaning it.

And Louis nods again, meaning it too.

  
  


.

  


Later that evening, as Louis yawns into his elbow but heroically continues to study respiration from the book spread out on the couch beside him, the sticky apartment lock jangles with the effort of a key trying to do its job. Louis glances up in time to see Niall push the door open at last and let himself inside, looking more disheveled than usual.

“Hey Nialler,” says Louis, taking off his glasses a moment to rub his eyes. “How goes it?”

“It goes,” Niall grumbles. He stomps inside, drops his keys with a loud clang on the coffee table, shoves Louis’s book unceremoniously off the couch, and lays his head on Louis’s lap, body splayed out much like a kitten in need of a belly rub. “I hate being a senior.”

Louis, half-smirking, gets comfortable and starts running his fingers through Niall’s hair. He hasn’t dyed it in a while; the platinum bleach is giving way to several inches of dark brown roots, giving him a look of skunky transition. “What do you hate about being a senior?”

“I wrote three different cover letters today,” says Niall, melting a little with the light massage. “And a response paper. And the outline of a midterm paper. Why is it open season on midterms from week three til week fucking nine? We only have ten total! Just put them all in week five and be done with it!”

Louis hums his sympathy, so Niall continues, “I don’t know, man. It’s too much. I’m graduating way too soon, and I need to both pass my classes and get a job.”

“Something will come up.” 

“When? Where? How?” Niall moans dramatically. “Everything is stupid. You know Teach for America rejected me?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I found out last week. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I need a job so I can figure out what’s next. And I can’t go back home. It would be like admitting defeat.”

“Worst case scenario, you work a shitty minimum wage job until you figure things out. Isn’t that the American way?”

“I guess.” Niall shreds his nails with a brooding pout. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like talking about this.” 

“No, it’s okay…”

“It’s just— I’m going to miss you too, you know?” Niall looks up at Louis through his eyelashes, a soft, bright blue peering through the dark flutter. “I’m going to miss… this. And Zayner. Where even is he?”

“With Liam, I assume.” Louis fights to swallow the lump thickening in his throat. 

“Ugh. Bros before hoes, my dude! This is getting ridiculous.” Niall heaves himself up to sitting position and pulls his phone out of his pocket; the sudden absence of his warmth is momentarily jarring. “Hey— hey, Zayner… Where the fuck are you, man? Lou and I are home, get your ass over here… Yes, it _is_ an emergency… the emergency is that we fucking miss you, asshole! Get over here. And bring a pizza with you as penance for ditching us. Twenty minutes. Okay, bye.”

“It’s that easy?” Louis asks in amazement.

“Well, sure.” Niall shrugs as he tucks his phone back in his pocket. “We haven’t had a bro night since they reunited at that bar before classes. Now it’s week three of the quarter. That shit is _wrong.”_

Niall settles back into Louis’s lap, now playing a game on his phone while Louis resumes stroking his hair. Louis watches him with some degree of awe, marveling at the guilelessness, the naked sincerity of him. How he can be so matter-of-fact about the things he wants, about the very fact of wanting them. His desire is so uncomplicated. He snuggles up on Louis’s legs without a trace of embarrassment or hesitation. His heart doesn’t twist into itself, always bruised and wondering. His is an orange sun lighting up a wide open horizon, boundless and free. He takes as easily as he gives. He gives Louis’s hand a puppy kiss, all slobber and eagerness, before getting up again to fetch himself a Gatorade.

What is it like, to want and then receive— to feel so effortlessly satiated and secure? To feel just the right amount of emotion; to feel _enough?_ Louis can’t remember the last time he’s felt the peace as he sees in Niall’s face, no crinkle in his brow or lines around a pensieve mouth. Niall may be under a certain amount of pressure, but he doesn’t crack under it, not really. He drinks his Gatorade, and he offers to play FIFA with Louis while they wait.

Indeed, the sticky lock jangles once more twenty minutes later, as Zayn shouts something about holding a hot pizza box and needing a hand. Smirking, Niall pauses the game and rushes off to help him. Louis goes ahead and turns the system off, clears the coffee table and fetches plates for the pizza Zayn sets down with a sigh of relief.

“Mmm, onion and mushroom,” Niall says approvingly as he inspects the pie. “Nice choice. You may join us.”

“Oh, gee, thanks,” Zayn drawls. “Thanks for the _privilege_ of joining you after you yourself called me in the middle of my date and ordered me to bring you dinner.”

“Not just me, Louis too,” Niall says through a mouthful of pizza.

“Well, lucky for you, it was an Evanston night and we were already at Blaze Pizza when I got your call.”

“Everyday is date night for you two sappy fucks, you’ll survive the separation anxiety,” Niall says, rolling his eyes.

“How’s Liam?” Louis asks politely as he helps himself to a slice.

“Liam’s good.” Zayn beams with a fondness usually reserved for his family. “Liam is… amazing.”

“You know, we’ve barely met him,” Niall points out. “You whisk each other away, and we barely even see _you,_ Z.”

“I know.” Zayn sighs into his slice of pizza. “I’m sorry… it’s all just really new right now. Neither of us has ever— I’ve never had anyone I’ve felt so strongly about, and Liam’s never been with a guy. We’re still figuring everything out, so it’s easy to get… you know, a little carried away.”

“What do you like about him?” Louis asks.

“He’s… he’s so _sweet,_ is what it is,” muses Zayn, an achingly lovely smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “He’s thoughtful. He asks a lot of questions, and he listens closely to my answers. He held my hand tonight for the first time, and it was like he was so proud to be walking next to me. It’s just easy. There’s none of that ‘does he like me, does he mean it’ kind of uncertainty. He’s sweet, and we… click.” 

“We should do dinner together,” suggests Louis. “With the four of us?”

“That’s a great idea!” Zayn enthuses. “Yeah, I’ll text him now! Although— let’s make it five. We should have Harry too.”

“Harry?” Louis’s stomach twists.

“Yeah, he and Liam are really close, they’ve been friends since middle school.” Zayn isn’t even looking up as his thumbs move with alacrity across his phone screen. 

“Right.”

“Hey, I saw you two at the bar, getting all cozy,” Niall says, grinning broadly and nudging Louis’s shoulder. “You didn’t move from the counter all night, I’m willing to bet. Did he, Zayn?”

“I glanced over periodically— he did not,” Zayn confirms.

“I’m surprised you could even spare me a glance, the way you and Liam were making goo-goo eyes at each other,” Louis retorts, his cheeks pink. 

“Well, it’s hardly like you minded— you got to spend all that time with Harry.” Zayn’s eyes twinkle. “What’s going on with you two, anyway?”

“There’s nothing going on,” Louis insists. “We haven’t spoken since that night.”

“Well, Liam said that whenever he mentions me to Harry, Harry always asks about you. Which is unusual for him.”

Zayn eyes Louis in a shrewd way that raises the goosebumps on his arms in cold high alert— and it doesn’t help at all, the way Louis’s insides writhe with guilty pleasure at the thought of his name on Harry’s lips, spontaneous and unprompted. He hastily tries to rearrange his expression into earnest disagreement.

“He’s only being polite. There’s nothing there. We had this kind of weird history, where we knew each other but not really, and it was personal but it was professional too— like seeing your therapist out in the wild, like it was Caroline. We know each other— or, she, and also Harry, know me— but I don’t know them very well, and the relationship is supposed to stay in a certain context, except we’ve gone outside of it and now we’re not sure what to do.”

“If you say so,” Niall says, with a slurp of his Gatorade that somehow sounds as skeptical as his expression looks.

“I saw both of your faces,” Zayn says. “And you both _looked_ like you were flirting…”

“I wasn’t,” Louis counters. “And Harry’s a bartender. It’s his job to flirt with everyone at least a little bit.”

“I don’t know,” says Zayn, looking thoughtful. “I’ve been back at the bar with Liam a couple of times for free drinks, and I’ve seen Harry interact with other patrons. He didn’t have the same… vI’ve with them.”

“What vI’ve did he have with me, then?” Louis’s unruly heart has the audacity to quicken.

“Well, with other people, he likes to banter, but you can tell he’s keeping his distance. You know? Like, he’ll smile and preen, but he gives everyone the same lines and he never moves from behind the bar. But with you, he was… shyer, almost. No preening or one-liners. And it was a different smile, too. It was warmer. More genuine.”

“Wow. You could take over for _Cosmo_ with that expert body language opinion, Zayner.”

Louis means it to come out crisp, archly dismissive, but he sounds waspish and defensive to his own ears. Zayn smirks like he knows.

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you did like Harry, and/or if Harry likes you,” reasons Niall. “He seems fun. And you know you already enjoy the cuddles.”

“Harry doesn’t like me like that,” Louis says stiffly.

“You don’t know for sure!”

“And if he did, he wouldn’t come right out and say so,” Zayn points out. “Liam told me that Harry tends to play things pretty close to the chest.”

“Guess we’ll find out at dinner.” Niall waggles his eyebrows. 

“Liam says he and Harry are in,” says Zayn, beaming at his phone. “This Saturday night? Harry’s late shift is on Sunday.”

“Yeah!” Niall whoops.

“Sure,” Louis mumbles.

“Cool, I’ll confirm. Where do we want to do it— here? I can make some basic chicken tikka or something.”

“Ugh, _yes,_ please,” moans Niall. “We have that stove-top grill pan, I’m so excited. Naan on the side, right?”

“Duh,” snorts Zayn. 

“I love your chicken tikka,” Louis opines. “You don’t make it enough.”

“Well, gear up for Saturday then!” Zayn puts his phone down cheerily. “They’re both in. They’ll bring dessert and wine. Now I need to get the good frozen naans— I’ll ask my mom and then order them.”

“I’ll help you grill,” says Niall.

“Yeah, just don’t go anywhere near the marinade, I’m not serving any bland white people food, we’re eating the real thing.”

“Anything you want from me?” Louis asks as Niall looks affronted by the slur against his seasoning. 

“I’ll let you know, but cooking-wise, probably not. I’m just excited for you two to meet Liam properly.” Zayn’s smile turns fond again.

“It’ll be fun,” Louis says.

“Can’t believe we dragged you back here to hang out with us tonight, and we ended up planning something to see Liam later,” chuckles Niall.

“It was good you told me to come back, though.” Zayn looks from Niall to Louis and back, glowing like someone lit a candle behind his face that turned his skin golden. “I love getting to know Liam, and I want you to know him too, but… you’re my best friends. Probably the best friends I’ve ever had. I wouldn’t want to neglect you.”

None of them say it, but the unspoken force hanging in the air like fog, heavy and heady, is the way that Commencement looms so much closer this side of spring break, a cloud cover that suddenly takes over and becomes the whole sky. It’s as though every day, every moment leading them towards the thick black dividing line represented by June 21st, is like a web of small cracks in the foundation, slowly cleaving them apart. They will have to actively build bridges between each other now, instead of being one little preexisting unit, always together.

They knew it was coming; they all wrote down the date in the fall, and Niall and Zayn petitioned to graduate back in November. But the reality of graduation weighs differently than the anticipation, and the additional, unexpected wrinkle of Liam has made the proceedings feel all the more precarious. Brittle, in a sense. Louis remembers what he told Caroline just today: _I thought I didn’t have to think about losing him until Commencement._

Except, change never really works on a schedule, no matter how carefully the schedule is planned. And loss doesn’t always have to be the ultimate seizure of anything indefinitely. Especially not now, not with them.

Zayn locks eyes with Louis, then Niall, and raises his half-eaten pizza slice like a toast. Niall grins, raises his too, and taps his crust against both of theirs. And Louis just lets himself smile— flickering, bittersweet, but true.

Being together on borrowed time is a complicated joy, but it is a joy nonetheless. And that is the part he is choosing to keep, as the sky goes dark and the lights turn on and a three-way FIFA tournament begins in the living room, promising to go on much of the night, all homework and responsibility left in the dust.

  
  


.

  


Zayn has precisely three and a half days to pull their dinner party together, and he is determined to make the most of them all.

 _i am getting the naans from this place on devon st so you two need to make a target run,_ he informs the group chat the next day. _actual tablecloth, napkins, some decent cutlery that matches, maybe some nicer drinking glasses if they’re on sale, we can’t drink wine in mugs!!!_

 _but we always drink wine out of mugs,_ Louis points out.

 _or leftover solo cups!_ Niall adds. Louis can’t tell if he’s trying to be helpful or sarcastic.

 _i will write out a full list for you for when you go on friday after lou’s classes are done,_ comes Zayn’s no-nonsense response.

_i have therapy on fridays._

_then after therapy! this is important!!!!!!!_

Niall and Louis find it all a bit hilarious— Zayn is normally so easy going and laid back— but proper hosting skills were apparently impressed upon him by his parents from a young age. While he sits in the living room that evening, writing out recipes and a cleaning schedule— T minus two and a half days to go— Zayn explains that his father is a consummate, old-school Pakistani host, and his mother was raised with traditional Southern hospitality, and the combination makes them a serious dinner party power couple. While he was growing up, even just a meal with another set of couple friends meant bringing out the fancy matching plates, laying out all the food buffet style, and shouting down any offers to help hand-wash the dishes. 

“I mean, I just think of my mother’s face if she saw me bring my boyfriend over for dinner to meet my friends, and we _didn’t_ have a proper spread laid out,” Zayn explains with a shudder, as he hands Louis and Zayn a copy of their Target list, and gets to work on a shopping list for himself.

Niall and Louis exchange looks, and decide it’s best not to argue.

In fact, they both decide to go to Target on Thursday night instead, so that Zayn can inspect and approve their wares, and still have time to remember something else and send them back out again. Niall drives the cart, and Louis makes the selections, sometimes texting pictures to Zayn to double-check that the color of the napkins, say, is fully up to scratch.

It is there, under the fluorescent corporate lighting, waiting on Zayn to answer why exactly they need to add the cost of these napkins when they can just steal some the next time they’re at Burger King, that Louis’s phone buzzes and he checks the alert with only the innocent expectation of Zayn’s reply.

Instead, it’s a text from an unknown string of numbers: _heyyy it’s harry! x_

Louis’s stomach feels like it’s been punched, winded, by an iron fist.

Another text pops up: _so, apparently zayn put liam in charge of dessert and wine, and now he’s freaking out about what to bake. he is being ridiculous and won’t admit it to z so here goes nothing— what kind of dessert do you all like??_

“Oi, Lou, did Zayner respond yet?” asks Niall, not bothering to look up from his own phone. “Whether or not we end up stealing their napkins, now I want Burger King for dinner tonight.”

“Um— not yet,” Louis manages. 

He opens the notifications, and stares at this clean new inbox, this place scrubbed of their past and bearing only these cheerful, friendly lines from Harry, who thought to initiate. Who wants to know what Louis thinks. His fingers hover over the screen for a long moment, which feels entirely too loaded and vulnerable for this random Target aisle.

_we don’t mind, really !!_

He chews his lower lip, then adds: _can’t go wrong with chocolate._

Immediately, three gray bubbles appear.

_no allergies or anything?_

_nope !_

_okay, i’ll tell him to do his chocolate nutella cake. he made it for his niece’s birthday last year and we had to take it away before either she or i passed out from a chocolate overdose._  

Louis grins down at the little screen, the little words that have him simultaneously so anxious and so stupidly warm inside. _sounds like it’ll go over well with this crowd! can’t wait!_

Just as Louis presses send, another notification buzzes: from Zayn, _oh alright we’ll steal from Burger King._ And another buzz: _but no skimping on the other stuff!!! will split cost 60/40, so make good choices pls…_

Louis takes a deep, steadying breath, as he presses down the thumbs up react on Zayn’s messages and looks up at Niall, who appears to be updating his Snap story with a fish-face selfie.

“Nialler! He said we can steal napkins, but the rest has to be good.” And, when Niall groans— “He’ll split it all 60/40, don’t worry.”

This placates Niall a bit, but not much. “Dinner parties are stupid. When I’m a real adult, I’m only going to have Super Bowl parties. No tablecloths or—” he checks the list “— _floral centerpieces_ for me, damnit. Just beer and chili in the living room.”

Louis hums his required assent, but his eyes are back on his messages with Harry. This white-blue feeling licks at his insides— like the blazing center of a flame, but also like the cool of a winter sky. A wanting, intimate heat, coexisting with the free-floating emotional detachment required to start typing a follow-up message, despite his rapidly-beating heart—

_it’s nice of liam to bake for us. i can only do it if it comes from a box._

Harry answers back at once: _i liked to bake when i was younger, but i don’t do it much now. too much clean-up._

_my little sisters love it. our house always smells like cookies._

Harry sends a Bitmoji image of himself submerged in a glass of milk, beaming, three cookies propped up against the side. It does look remarkably like him— the longish curly hair, the shape of the nose, the dimple he chose to include. Louis can’t help but grin— which, of course, raises Niall’s alarms.

“Hey, Lou!” Niall waves his hands in Louis’s face. “We’re here to do a _job,_ and quickly, because it’s dinnertime and I’m starving. Who are you flirting with?”

“I’m not flirting with anyone. Maybe I just saw a really good meme on Twitter.”

“If that’s true—” and from Niall’s unimpressed expression, that’s a big ‘if’— “then send it to me too. And keep moving, come on.”

Louis tries, he does. Pulls out the list again, and double-checks it against their cart. Niall marches off towards the register, and Louis trails behind him, as a heart react appears on his last text and three gray bubbles appear on the screen once more.

_what are you doing now?_

_shopping for the dinner actually. niall and i were sent on a target run._

A “haha” react pops up.

_both of them are taking this pretty seriously! i feel like i’m about to meet my son’s boyfriend’s parents._

Louis snickers out loud.

_yeah that’s exactly it !!_

“Would you mind helping me unload this?” asks Niall’s irritable voice as Louis leans up against the register. One-handedly he starts emptying the cart onto the conveyor belt, letting Niall take the lead with the bags and payment.  _i don’t know why it has to be such an occasion. we can just do dinner at flat top, and andy’s for dessert._  

_lol i haven’t been to andy’s in a while! i usually like jeni’s or ghiradelli’s in the city._

Louis’s heart is in his throat as he types, eagerly, recklessly: _that’s no good! i’ll have to take you the next time you’re in the neighborhood._ He doesn’t let himself think; his finger bypasses conscious instruction, just presses send. 

But Harry reacts, instantly, with the love-heart.

_i’ll hold you to it! x_

_“Louis!”_ An exasperated Niall pierces the glow. “Come on, we’re done!”

“Oh. Right.”

He tucks his phone away (with some reluctance) and pushes the cart behind Niall, walking out of the white, even lighting into the night.

The breeze is balmy, without its usual bite. Summer is already on its way, it seems. Louis lets himself enjoy the way the gentle wind blows through his hair, airing out the back of his neck. He closes his eyes, savoring the tentative thrill of almost-maybe asking Harry to hang out; the swirl of nerves and pure sweetness flooding his nerves, the tips of his fingers. It doesn’t feel real— he doesn’t know how to feel— but he feels something stirring in him all the same. Desire, but realer— fizzing with potential.

Niall, however, has questions in his eyes. And, apparently, on his lips.

“What’s up with you, Lou?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Louis says, and he’s not lying, it _is_ probably nothing. Nothing he could have, anyway, much less keep. 

“Are you sure? You seem… distracted.”

Louis just shrugs, his cheeks pink. Niall nudges him with his shoulder, and asks him to call the Uber.

  
  


.

  


Dinner with Niall is its usual laugh— Burger King fries and onion rings spread out on the tray, a mess of mixed mayo and ketchup between them, a giant root beer for Niall and a Sprite for Louis, while they shoot the breeze in the curved booth in the back corner. With Zayn so often with Liam, Louis and Niall have gotten more nights like these together, sharing snacks, talking about everything and nothing. Niall is so much more thoughtful and substantive a person than he seems at first blush, with his raucous smiles and his extroverted sense of humor. Especially when Louis gets him on the subject of the midterm campaigns he’s supporting, the hopes he has for a “blue wave” in Illinois, there is a fire in him that burns both bright and steady. Louis is content just to listen, to let the various merits of Pritzker and Underwood and Casten wash over him in Niall’s excited voice.

But when they’re home again on Noyes Street— flush with stolen napkins, of course, which they carefully store in the kitchen for Saturday— Louis finds himself withdrawing, curling up in his bed with only his desk lamp on, while Niall watches Stephen Colbert in the living room. His phone is cradled in his hands, vexingly blank of notifications; Harry didn’t respond again after the exchange about Andy’s. Granted, there wasn’t much left to say on that topic now— but even that small taste of casual banter has left him aching with hunger.

This is what he was afraid of, when he tucked the bar napkin into his pocket and tried to forget, tried to move on. The way the want never seems to sits still; the way it gnaws at him, stubborn, restless, always in over its own head. Harry is a professional— good at making people feel good. Louis has got to let him go.

But he’s wearing the same jeans he wore to One Direction that night, and the slight bulge in his pocket is the proof that he _can’t_ let go. The Connect Four chips, and Harry’s number, his social media handles. _I think he already gave you the answer when he gave you that information._ Caroline has a point, but Louis is too scared to believe it. 

Slowly, slowly, he withdraws the napkin. Smooths it out on his bedsheet, and scarcely breathes as he looks up Harry’s Instagram— @raconteur1994– on the unambiguous brightness of his phone screen.

And there he is, beaming over coffee and brunch in his profile picture. _Harry Styles, 24. Photographer. The best time to wear a striped sweater is all the time._ He also has links to his Twitter (same handle) and his Tumblr (@noremedyformemory).

Louis starts scrolling.

He’s awake much later than he intended, still scrolling long after Niall turns off the TV and goes to bed, even after Zayn tiptoes into the room and slips into his bed too. Louis pretends to be asleep until he hears Zayn snoring, then continues, wandering as far back through the archives as he dares.

Harry has been active on all his accounts for years, filling them with primarily original content— day-to-day observations and favorite quotations alongside the main event, his photographs. There are the highly polished professional ones, of landscapes and events, weddings and baby showers— but there are also the more personal ones. Of his wanderings around the city, imaginative close-ups of ordinary things, portraits of his friends. Louis spots Nick Grimshaw in the mix a few times— candid shots of him grinning amidst a cloud of marijuana smoke, or drinking coffee, or otherwise staring thoughtfully into space. There is one of him without a shirt on, reading a book in a mess of sheets on his bed, but it’s the only one of its type— and it’s from 2014. Nick’s presence is most deeply felt in that year; it trails off, almost imperceptibly, in the later ones.

While Louis knows little about photography as a discipline, he gleans enough from the Instagram and Tumblr accounts to see that Harry has a remarkable, and patient, eye. He catches the split-second moments of disarmed spontaneity, the moments and the angles that feel a little off-beat, and thus the most revealing. The photographs of people laughing are the most arresting in their intimacy, their startling warmth, even through the frozen pixels of digitalia.

But, he notices, images of Harry himself are not often featured, on any of his accounts. He shows up occasionally in group shots, or in pictures other people have taken of him, usually posted on Instagram. And he preens, beams, poses. But he doesn’t have any self-portraits, or even a single selfie— no record of himself through his own eyes, no visual reflexivity or introspection. No personal revelation. Louis feels Harry’s spirit only in the logic of each account— the timing and selective care that go into his Twitter (more scrapbook than autobiography), his Tumblr (a chronological archive of his artistic maturation). His Instagram has more texture, more intermixing between work and leisure and art— but even there, it’s only glimpses. Curated windows into the foyer or living room, but never the bedroom. Never the upstairs or the inside— never the places where he dreams, or becomes.

He was like that in the bar, too, Louis remembers. So often hidden behind the counter, doling out such sparkling shards of his outer shell that it’s taken Louis until now to notice how little was actually offered.

He wonders how many of Harry’s many photogenic friends think they know him, and how many of them actually do. 

Liam does. Louis can be sure of this much. Any time Harry posts a photo of himself cheesing in front of a colorful wall or mealtime spread, it’s Liam who gets tagged for photo credit (@fakeliampayne). But he is otherwise elusive in a way that Louis finds somehow… compelling. Like the more he tries to know about Harry, the more he realizes there is to discover.

It’s past two now, and the morning will be nothing short of torture on four hours of sleep. Louis rubs his burning eyes with his fist, and sets the alarm on his phone before putting it on its charger on the floor. He thinks of the two Connect Four pieces in his pocket, red and black… the way they were both evenly matched and mutually distracted by their own conversation… the way Harry smiled when he gave Louis the napkin, like maybe it really was a beginning instead of an ending…

  
  


.

  


“Okay, I think this is done now,” Zayn announces, a certain tenor of hysteria in his voice as he nevertheless continues to compulsively stir his pot of chickpea curry.

“I’m sure it’s great. Don’t worry, we’re ready,” Niall points out from beside him, yanking the naans out of the oven.

“Table’s all set,” Louis confirms, gesturing to their dining table, around which they’ve crammed two extra folding chairs. (Niall and Louis have already promised not to let one of their guests settle for the folding chairs.)

Zayn’s dark eyes sweep the scene one last time: Niall, setting fresh naans onto a plate; Louis, straightening the place settings, cutlery and wine glasses and the blue tablecloth and the fake-flower-ringed candle serving as their centerpiece. Zayn’s chickpeas just need to be put out in a bowl; the chicken tikka is already in its dish. The living room carpet has vacuum lines in it; the bathroom has been scrubbed. Their floor lamp casts cheerful golden shadows over the settling dusk. Everyone is dressed casually, but smelling of their best cologne. It’s a couple of minutes past seven on Saturday evening, and the guests are due any minute.

Zayn clears his throat, and stops stirring. Louis braces himself for another checklist, but instead he is surprised.

“Thank you, both of you, for doing all this with me,” he says, with such obvious sincerity that both Niall and Louis squirm a little with it. “Liam means a lot to me, as do you, and I appreciate that you made it special.”

“Any time,” Niall says, nonplussed.

“Yeah. I mean… we’re all going to be eating very well tonight because of you.”

Zayn takes off his tomato-splattered apron and claps both of them on the back. “Thank you.”

Fortunately, now is when they are interrupted by a smart knock on the door. Zayn rushes to answer it.

Liam and Harry are both wearing black skinny jeans and holding a bag of goodies each. Harry smiles at Zayn, handing him the bottle of wine inside the brown paper, but it’s Louis’s eyes he meets next, Louis that he reaches to hug before he’s taken off his coat. He smells vaguely sweet, mingled with the spice of his cologne; he gathers Louis into a smooth one-armed hug, which Louis returns with both of his. 

“Smells good in here,” Harry remarks when he lets go. “Good thing I wore my stretchy jeans.”

“Zayn’s been slaving over a hot stove all afternoon,” Louis laughs. “You’ll be taking the leftovers with you.”

“Perfect.” Harry rubs his hands together, and wanders to the table to scope out the meal. 

“Harry said you all wanted chocolate, so I made my Nutella chocolate cake,” Liam is explaining to Zayn, who arranges the cake plate on the kitchen counter with the care of an archaeologist handling something priceless. “I hope that’s okay? Not too chocolatey? I thought about adding some banana or strawberry or something, cut the richness—”

“Nope, this’ll do,” says Niall, who eyes the cake covetously. “You don’t mind if I just… eat this all by myself, do you?” 

“Yes,” Louis bristles. “I can’t wait to try it, Liam. It looks amazing.”

Liam beams. “I hope you like it! Nice to see you again, Louis.” And he reaches for a handshake, which morphs quickly into a hug. Zayn couldn’t look happier as he chivvies them all to the table, forcing Harry, Liam, and Louis into the dining chairs, leaving him and Niall with the folding ones. 

“I can’t believe you made all this,” says Liam, eyes round as coins. “This is, like. A real feast.”

“It’s the first time you’re here, eating dinner and meeting my best friends.” Zayn radiates with joy. “Plus, my dad was thrilled I practiced my tikka. My older sister shared her tips and tricks only on the condition I make it again when I’m back in Florida.”

“A toast!” Harry has opened the bottle of wine, and is pouring out the glasses. He happens to be sitting in the chair on the corner between Louis and Liam; his arm brushes against Louis’s as he distributes the drink.

“To Zayn and Liam?” offers Niall.

“No,” Harry says, “to new friends… who will hopefully become old friends.”

“Hear, hear!” Niall crows, banging his glass against everyone else’s with abandon; Louis can barely restrain his smile as he joins in. “To the beginning!”

“The beginning,” the rest of the table echoes, drinking.

“Okay, let’s start!” Zayn says, offering Harry the chicken tikka first.

The table is tiny, especially for five, but it means that food passes between them easily, dolloped in multiple helpings on every plate. Only Zayn eats with his hands in total comfort; Harry gives up first, spearing his chicken with his fork and chasing it down with a spoon of chickpeas and a bite of naan, while Niall snarfs his naan separately and eats the rest together with his fork. Liam tries valiantly to copy Zayn, who never touches his fork, but relents about halfway through. Louis makes mini burritos for himself, piling filling into small rolls of naan he pops whole into his mouth. Zayn thinks they’re all hilarious, though reserves much of his laughter for Liam, who spills curry on his shirt twice in his eagerness.

It’s an easy rhythm, a generous give-and-take of food, drink, conversation. And Liam _is_ sweet, Zayn was right about that. He doesn’t mind at all, being the butt of Zayn’s teasing jokes; he listens to the conversation with thoughtful enthusiasm, keeps touching Zayn’s arm like a reassurance, that he’s here, and happy, and taken care of. Zayn was right about the ambiance, too; the specific pleasure of enjoying a meal prepared by hand, with care. Louis’s never experienced anything quite like it in college— like they’re really grown adults in a home they’ve made for themselves, capable of nourishing each other in body and spirit. Sharing themselves in the open, their experiences and memories, and knowing on some level that it is in the sharing itself that they are building a new, already cherished memory together.

Louis watches it from outside the circle as much as he experiences it from within. Niall, volunteering to finish the chickpeas himself so they could move to dessert faster. Zayn, squeezing Liam’s hand on top of the table while Harry tells a long-winded tale at his expense. Liam, knocking his elbow into Niall’s ribs by mistake. And Harry, always Harry, drawing Louis’s eye like tide to moon. Harry, with his low voice and meandering style, his wiggling eyebrows that always make Liam laugh. Harry, confessing under Zayn’s eagle eye that he did indeed find the chickpeas spicy, even though Zayn thought he’d kept it mild.

Harry, knocking back his last dregs of wine, the liquid undulating in the long pale column of his throat, the motion of his arm as he puts the glass down offering Louis an intoxicating whiff of both musky grape and his own heady, ambrosial scent, a combination that fills his whole heart with sighing, winedark pleasure.

He meant what he told Caroline. He will always want more than Harry’s friendship— will always take as much as Harry is willing to offer him. Harry, with his pink mouth and long legs and impassive face; raconteur, photographer, cuddler, mystery.

When the food is mostly eaten and they’re all full with Liam’s transcendent Nutella cake, Harry, Louis, and Niall end up taking the lead on clear-up. Zayn and Liam had cooked for tonight, after all, and Zayn looks exhausted at even the thought of standing up. Liam manages to coax him to the couch, where Zayn cuddles up on him sleepily. Niall, starting on the stack of plates, snickers in amusement.

“Z, just go to bed, we’re fine here,” he says.

“We could watch a movie or something, it’s barely ten,” Zayn argues, voice barely stronger than a whine.

“Well, if we do, you’re not invited,” says Harry with a grin. “Go tuck him in, Limes. It’s time to go on home, Soldier.”

Liam nudges Zayn gently to his feet, and walks him over to his and Louis’s room. But when he arrives back to the kitchen, Liam’s expression has taken a turn for the sheepish.

“I, um.” He turns to Louis. “I’m so sorry to do this to you, Lou, but… would it be okay if I stayed here with Zayn tonight?”

Niall and Harry exchange smirks, while Louis just looks taken aback.

“We usually stay at my place, since I have my own room,” Liam continues, blushing. “But Zayn’s pretty out of it, and it’s a long way back…” 

“You can rough it on the couch, Lou,” says Niall, amused. “Or you’re welcome to stay with me. If you don’t mind the mess.”

“You can also come back with me, if you want,” Harry offers calmly. “You can take one of our rooms, since we’ll have an open one.”

“Uh— yeah, I’ll, uh… I’ll figure it out,” Louis says to Liam, now blushing too. “Don’t worry about it. You can… go back.”

“Sure you don’t need any help cleaning up?”

“No,” Niall and Harry say together, with equal cheekiness.

“W-We won’t be too _loud,_ anything—”

“Good night, Loam!” Harry interjects loudly. His cheeks and the tip of his ears cherry red, Liam disappears into the bedroom without another word. 

Harry shakes his head, chuckling, as he hands Niall a plate to dry and accepts another dirty one from Louis. “He is both ridiculous and ridiculously wholesome. Sorry our roommates sexiled you from your own bed, Louis.”

“It’s fine.” Louis can’t look at him. He _can’t._

“I did mean it, you know. You can come back with me. If you want.”

“You don’t have to go right away either,” interjects Niall. “We can stick around for a bit. Play FIFA, or watch something.”

“Don’t you have to go to Naperville tomorrow morning to help the Underwood campaign with canvassing?” asks Louis, in spite of himself.

“Well, yeah, but I can sleep on the bus ride.”

“I wouldn’t want you to tire yourself out on my account, Nialler,” says Harry cheerfully. “You should go to bed too. Louis and I will be fine.”

“We’re such old ladies, off to bed at ten on a Saturday night.” Niall shakes his head irritably.

“We had an amazing dinner,” Harry points out. “No regrets here. It’ll take me almost an hour to get home anyway.”

“Here’s your cake dish, all dried off,” says Niall, putting it back in its bag. “Think we finished most of the wine, but if not, you can take that too.”

“Nah, keep it.” Harry puts the last of the clean dishes away in the cupboards. “Good night, N, and thanks again for having us.”

Niall hugs Harry with both arms, ruffles his curls so that they flop all over his ears. “Good night, H. Safe travels. And Lou? What’s your plan?”

Niall shifts slightly so that he’s angled away from Harry’s gaze, and offers Louis a tremendous wink. When Louis’s expression stiffens, Niall has to work hard to suppress his giggle.

“I, um…”

It isn’t even that he doesn’t want to go with Harry. It’s that he _does,_ badly. And there’s no polite way of sugarcoating the wish to travel across town to be alone together, when he could just as easily sleep on his own couch.

He bites his lip, his breath hitching with nerves, and turns to Harry.

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” he hears himself say.

“I wouldn’t either.” Harry’s smile is so gallingly relaxed. “Seriously, it’s up to you. You’re under no obligation.”

Louis tried to swallow the lump growing in his throat. Blue eyes meet green, searching. But, if he’s honest with himself, there was only ever one answer to this question from the beginning. A thrilling, guilty, itchy, selfish—

“Yeah, okay. Let’s go. Thank you.”

The change that comes over Harry is subtle. Louis thought his expression was placid to start— but it’s now, with the crinkle reaching his eyes, and the soft light that seems to have turned on behind his face, that Louis realizes that he, too, had been holding his breath.

“Okay,” Harry says simply, gathering up the cake plate.

Niall can scarcely disguise his giddiness as he sees Harry, then Louis, out of the apartment.

 

.

 

 

“I can hold the cake plate, if you want,” Louis offers when they’re outside, breathing in the fresh spring evening.

“Nah, I got it. I was the one who carried it in the Uber over, when it was under the bag. I have steady hands. Liam only switched with me when we got to your door, because he wanted to give Zayn what he’d made himself.”

This detail brings an affectionate twitch to Louis’s mouth. “They’re idiots.” 

“I know.” Harry grins to himself. “But thanks to them, I had a really fun night.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’m glad you came.”

The two of them climb the steep CTA steps, swipe their cards and wait for the next train back to Howard. Even under the flickering, flat-white fluorescence of the station, Harry makes a lovely sight— pretty, always, but more than that… happy. Happy, here, with him.

And that makes feel Louis braver. Surer.

“You didn’t have to bring me back with you,” he says. All the subtext out on the table.

“I probably didn’t,” Harry concedes. His tone holds out, impassive, though his eyes betray him. 

Louis checks around them on the platform, to confirm they’re completely alone.

“I liked seeing you tonight. I like… you. A lot. I hope that’s okay.”

For one wild moment, Louis thinks Harry might lean in and kiss him, right here in this dingy purple line station under the patchy white light. But instead, Harry wraps his long arm around Louis’s shoulders, and tucks Louis’s head under his chin, so that his breath huffs against the skin of Harry’s throat.

And, into Louis’s hair, murmurs, “Feeling’s mutual.”

 


End file.
